Messianic expectations and modern Judaism

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Messianic Expectations

AND

- MODERN JUDAISM.

LECTURES DELIVERED BY

SOLOMON SCHINDLER,

OF THK T£MFLE ADXTH ISRABL, IN BOSTON.

aSSitJj an IntroStirtiDtt 6s
MI NOT J. SAVAGE.

18o0ton:

S. E. CASSINO AND COMPANY.
1886.

Copyright, 1886,
By S. E. CAssmo and Compant.

Electrotyped by
C. J. Peteks & Son. Boston.

HENRIETTE SCHINDLER,

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED IN
THANKFULNESS,

BY THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

"What epoch would you choose to have
lived in ? " a lady once asked the late Chauncey
Wright. "The most modern," was his reply.
Amen, say I, unless I could come to life again
in a hundred or a thousand years. For the
present most certainly is the most cheering and
inspiring age of the world's history so far. The
world is not old, worn out, and hastening to
decay. Politically, industrially, and religiously,
we are seeing the first rays of the dawn of
humanity's long day. The real " Golden Age "
is ahead of us, not in the past. The twilight
has been very long ; and, while the mists and
shadows have hung over the earth, people have
easily imagined faces of hate and terror looking
down on them out of the sky, and have found
it hard to recognize friends in the uncertain
movements of those about them. But now
that the sun is up, the sky is seen to smile, and
the supposed enemies of the darkness are found
to be friends.

One of the most striking indications of this
religious advance is the coming together at last

viii Preface.

of the Christian and the Jew. According to
the narrow " orthodox " interpretation of these
words this coming together may seem to be
brought about by the Christian's^ ceasing to be
a Christian, and the Jew's ceasing to be a Jew.
But if so, it is only because those terms have
been so interpreted as to be too small for the
growing religious life of man. If either " Chris-
tian" or "Jew" is so defined as to make it less
than " man," then it is time for both of them
to be outgrown.

And it is curious and instructive to note the
genesis of the old hate as well as the genesis of
the new friendship. The Jews, at the time of
their captivity in Babylon, borrowed the story of
Eden and the Fall of Man from an old Turanian
epic. And this, together with their own tradi-
tions, which they came to regard as the infallible
Word of God, became the instrument of their
bondage, and the means of their isolation from

/ the common life of humanity. This same book
also, supplemented by another Scripture, and
interpreted in the light of that other, became
also the mental prison-house of Christendom.
And this isolation in both cases bred spiritual
pride and hate.

But now, after long centuries of enmity, at
least some Christians and some Jews have
grown brave enough to question their tradi-

' tions. They dare to be hospitable to new

Preface. ix

ideas, to think that even the religious world
may become wiser, and that maturity may know
more than childhood. So, as they look into
each other's faces, they are becoming conscious
that religious hate was born of religious igno-
rance and conceit, and that a truer knowledge of
God means a broader love for man.

Thus when Jew and Christian cease fighting
over what neither of them knows, they find
themselves on the common ground of human
need, human labor, and human hope. And here
God meets them as the common Father and
Helper.

This volume of lectures by a Jew, delivered
to an audience more than half of which was
Christian, and treating frankly and freshly a
theme of equal interest to both, is both prophecy
and fulfilment of the broader religious life of
the time. As such I hail it. My standing here
to introduce my friend to a larger audience than
that which first greeted him does not mean that
I am ready to agree with everything he says. It
means a much better thing than that — the grand
and hopeful fact that the world at last is willing
to hear an earnest man without waiting to find
out whether it agrees with him or not. We are
coming to have faith in truth at last ; and this
is much better than believing that our faith is
true. Having got rid of the conceit that we
already have all the truth that God intended for

X Preface.

the world, there is some hope now of our really
finding all the truth we need. I welcome this
book because I believe that it is at least honest
in its search. And since the truth-seeker is
the only God-seeker, I feel sure that they who
seek shall find the Father.

But now my simple task is done. An archi-
tect once said to me, many years ago, "Columns
that support nothing, but are set up only to
look at, are bad taste in architecture. Have
only -what is of use ; then ornament that as
much as you please." I have often thought of
this as applying in general to all literary style.
And particularly have I thought of it when
called on to write a preface to a book. This
book needs no columns of mine to support it.
It will be able to stand on its own foundations.
And I should regard it as specially bad taste in
me to set up too long a row of pillars in front of
it. My only ambition has been to set up a few
very modest posts to mark the path that leads
to the doorway, and thus to indicate my be-
lief that it will be worth the reader's while to
enter in.

M. J. Savage.

Feb. i8, 1886.

CONTENTS.

FAGB

Introductory i

"Two Thousand Years Ago" 15

" The Carpenter's Son " 32

Judaism the Mother, Christianity the Daughter . 50

A Genuine Messiah (A

The Spanish Inquisition 83

David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho loi

The Kabbalah 118

Sabbatai Zwi 134

Conclusion 152

The Pittsburg Conference: Its Causes .... 170

The Pittsburg Conference: Its Work 186

Modern Judaism 206

The Sinaitic Revelation 224

Moses 239

Propagation of Religion 256

Churches and their Relation to Morals .... 276
xi

Messianic Expectations.

I.

INTRODUCTORY.

'DEAS are as mortal as men, who are their
exponents : their origin and life are similar
to that of any human being : they are lim-
ited, as is mankind, by time and space. Ideas
are first conceived by the human mind, and
pass a period of embryonic existence before
they become strong enough to bear the light
and the changing temperature of the world.
Then they pass a term of childhood, during
which they are subject to all kinds of diseases,
and the weak among them die fast, like infants
in a crowded city. Those only which are en-
dowed with sufficient vitality survive ; they grow
up to manhood, fight their battles, and not sel-
dom conquer the world. After their mission is
fulfilled and their vitality exhausted, they enter
into a period of decrepit old age. Though they
are now of little, if any, usefulness, they still
command the respect and the reverence of the

2 Messianic Expectations.

world on account of their age and their former
renown. But every, day brings them nearer to
the grave, until their last hour strikes ; and
after a few last convulsions they pass away,
sometimes as unnoticed as they appeared upon
the stage of life.

Before, however, their contemporaries are
ready to bury them, a dispute frequently arises
as to the reality of their death. Some can
hardly believe that an idea which has lived and
worked among them for such a length of time,
which has performed such great and marvellous
deeds, and which has commanded their rever-
ence during all their lifetime, has indeed passed
away. They cling to it with filial love and de-
votion, and deceive themselves with the hope
that the departed idea is only asleep for a while,
or in a trance from which it will surely awaken
after a few hours. Others, who have always
been depending on the departed idea for their
sustenance, are fearing the loss of their support,
and are unwilling to give up their privileges.
They too claim that death has not yet occurred ;
that they still observe some tokens of life ; and
they too are opposed to a speedy interment.
On the other hand, the health officers, reason
and common sense, insist upon the necessity of
the burial; They claim that the process of dis-
solution will infect the neighborhood with the
germs of disease. Thus the defunct idea is

Introductory 3

finally buried, in spite of all remonstrances ;
and posterity either passes by its grave indiffer.
ently or places a wreath of evergreen upon it,
as the case may be.

As there occur cases of death among men
every day which, though unnoticed by the mul-.
titude, cast their gloom over the circles in which
the departed had moved, thus ideas are dying
away in and with almost every generation, the
death of which affects only those who stood in
near relationship to them. And thus have we,
the Israelites of the present generation, been
the witnesses of the death of an idea which was
conceived more than two thousand years ago by
our nation, which passed its childhood, manhood,
and old age under its protection, and which has
now expired after a long and marvellous career,
never to be revived again.

The idea to which I refer is no other than
the hope of our nation in the advent of a per-
sonal Messiah who would collect the scattered
remnants of Israel under one banner, re-estab-
lish them in Palestine, rebuild Jerusalem in its
former glory, and make Zion the capital not
only of the Holy Land, but that of the whole
world.

In the following lectures I shall give the
eulogy of this idea, and traQ,e its history from
its very conception to the hour of its death.
May it suffice, however, at present, if I ex-

4 Messianic Expectations.

plain the reasons first why I selected such a
topic, and then why I maintain that the idea of
the advent of a Messiah has died of late ; is
stone dead now, and ought to be buried by the
side of similar defunct ideas, in spite of all op-
position which may be raised against its final
interment.

Although our nation is one of the oldest, if
not the oldest, on earth ; although it has lived
on every continent, in every zone, in every
climate ; although we have a history, a litera-
ture of our own, excelled by no other ; it has
been our misfortune that we have never been
understood by our neighbors. At best, we have
been looked at with distrust ; and though we
have always thrown in our lot with our fellow-
citizens in happiness and adversity, though we
have been born and raised among them for
generations, we have always been denounced by
them as a foreign element, as a sect, the aspira-
tions and hopes of which differed widely from
those of the majority. This misunderstanding,
this distrust, has not been removed even in our
time and in this our country. You meet with
it wherever you turn in political, social, mercan-
tile, life. One of the reasons why we were and
are distrusted is, as it appears to me, that we
were and are still supposed to consider our
country as only a temporary domicile, or, in
other words, that we are suspected of indif-

Introductory. 5

ference toward our country and its inhabitants.
We are said to yearn for a return to the land of
our forefathers, and to be impatiently awaiting
the time when a Mqssiah shall appear among
us, and not only restore our political indepen-
dence, but make us the masters of the world.
If this were the case, if these were indeed our
hopes and aspirations, I must say that our
neighbors would be perfectly justified in dis-
trusting us ; for I agree with them that a man
cannot have two countries at the same time,
that he can be attached with sincerity to only
one country. The man will never be a good
American citizen who always dreams of a re-
turn to the country from which he came, and
who delights only in the customs and usages of
the fatherland.

But in this regard our neighbors were and are
entirely mistaken. Not one of us cares to leave
this country except on a visit ; not one of us
harbors in his heart any love for Palestine, un-
less it is tha.t esteem in which classical ground
is held by every man of culture : there is not
one among us who expects the advent of a
Messiah.

I always took it for granted that, with the ex-
ception of the ignorant, our fellow-citizens were
aware of the fact that modern Judaism has long
since discarded the hope in the advent of a Mes-
siah, and that the modern Israelite is with all

6 Messianic Expectations.

his heart and soul a citizen of the country in
which he Hves, and where he is granted human
rights ; but how great has been my surprise
when in conversation with persons of high cul-
ture, of eminent scholarship, and of rare intel-
ligence, I have found that they still believe us
yearning for Palestine and praying for the ad-
vent of a Messiah, that they still think it a
distinguishing feature between Jews and Chris-
tians that we believe the Messiah will come, and
they that he has come. Open the geographi-
cal text-books which your children use at school,
and you will find therein, in cold print, the
statement that the Jews are a sect which is ex-
pecting a Messiah, who, as the Christians claim,
has already come ; and thousands of children
memorize this erroneous statement year after
year, and hear it repeated Sunday after Sunday
at church ; and we do absolutely nothing to
contradict it and to rectify the error. ' It is
therefore time, high time, that we make an at-
tempt to enlighten our fellow-citizens in regard
to our hopes ; that we show to them the tomb
in which the Messianic expectations of our na-
tion are buried. :

But although the misunderstanding may be
partly laid before our door,' inasmuch as we may
have neglected to notify the Christian world
promptly of the demise of the Messianic idea,
we shall find that our Christian friends are not

Introductory. 7

entirely faultless ; for they have never shown
any readiness to accept our information : they
have reasons for not believing in the death of
that idea, and they remonstrate against its in-
terment. The same people who distrust our
patriotism on the ground that we are expecting
a Messiah and wishing to return to Palestine, —
these same people are shocked and horrified
when we tell them that we do not any longer
expect a Messiah, and have not the faintest
desire for a political restoration of our people.
Now why } Because such intelligence strikes
at the root of their own religious belief. The
whole structure of their religion rests upon the
belief of the Jewish nation in the advent of a
Messiah. As long as this idea has been strong
and vigorous among us, their building has stood
firm ; but from the moment the idea expired,
from the moment its fallacy was demonstrated,
their structure could not be saved from its
downfall. They are actually placed between
the two horns of a dilemma, and do not know
which to choose. They do not know at present
whether they should prefer us to be indifferent
citizens or to be indifferent to Messianic expec-
tations. For this very reason, it becomes
doubly our duty to spread that intelligence as
far as our circles reach, and to show to the
Gentile world that Messianic expectations are
not essential to Judaism ; that Judaism can

8 Messimtic Expectations.

exist without them ; that the Jewish mission
is not chained to Palestine, but embraces the
whole world ; that, metaphorically speaking,
Israel itself is the Messiah whom God has
destined to enlighten the nations of the
earth.

In the course of my subsequent lectures, I
shall therefore show that the Messianic idea had
originally a political, and by no means a reli-
gious or spiritual, tendency ; that it never ap-
peared as a manifestation of a healthy condi-
tion of the body politic of the Jewish people,
but rather as a mental disease, as a mania,
as an epidemic, which would break out at
times of great national calamity. I shall show
that these epidemics repeatedly occurred with
greater or less force up to the eighteenth cen-
tury. I shall show how the Messiah, originally
political, was transformed by degrees into a
divine messenger, directly descending from
heaven, who should re-assemble, in a miraculous
manner, the Israelites from all the corners of
the earth, bring them to Palestine, raise the
dead, judge the whole world, past and present,
punish the wicked and reward the faithful, and
establish a universal government and a uni-
versal religion. I shall show how the Messi-
anic fancy finally pined away when the new era
shed its full light upon its absurdities, until it
died out entirely.

Introductory. 9

The word Messiah itself deserves a close
scrutiny. The Hebrew word mashach means to
spread an oily or greasy substance over a_ per-
son or an article ; but right from the start it
implied a sacred ceremony. Jacob poured oil
u,pon the stone upon which he had rested and
enjoyed that wonderful dream. Moses is or-
dered to prepare oil for the special purpose of
anointing his brother Aaron as high priest,
and also to anoint the different articles of fur-
niture which were to be used in the tabernacle,
in order to give him and them a certain sanctity
in the eyes of the people. The narrative and
command are given in such a matter-of-fact way
that there cannot be the least doubt that, among
ancient nations, especially those with whom the
Israelites had come in contact, there must have
been in use a similar ceremony of installing the
highest officials, kings or priests, into their ex-
alted position. Why oil was poured over their
heads, in what connection oil stood with the
dignity of the office, what the meaning of the
custom was originally, when and where it origi-
nated, is more than I can tell ; and, I think,
more than anybody else can tell. The fact,
however, remains that the ceremony of pouring
oil upon the head of a person meant to conse-
crate him for a high political position. The
Mosaic constitution had provided for a hierar-
chical government. The high priest alone was,

10 Messianic Expectations.

therefore, to be anointed. After the decline of
the primitive priesthood, we find that Samuel
anointed Saul, and afterward David, as kings
over Israel ; and that from that time it became
necessary for a king to be anointed in order to
be acknowledged by the people as their legiti-
mate sovereign. Mashiach, or the anointed,
is, therefore, synonymous with the word king.
Whenever in political language that word has
been made use of, it had no other meaning, and
could have had no other, than that of legitimate
king. None, however, of all the so-called Mes-
siahs whd have appeared in the course of his-
tory, has undergone or has found it necessary to
undergo the ceremony of having oil poured over
his head ; which evidently shows that the origi-
nal meaning having been forgotten or obliter-
ated by that time, the word mashiach, or, in the
Latin version, messias, denoted simply a king,
but not a divine messenger.

The illustrious reign of David, and the inde-
pendence which the united kingdom of Israel
enjoyed during his government, appeared in the
next centuries the more glorious the more the
weakness and dependence of Israel were then
felt. At a time when royalty was hereditary, and
people not seldom waged war to install an infant
upon a throne for no other cause than that it
was the lineal descendant of a king, it was quite
natural that when for the first time the hop? of

Introductory. 1 1

a regeneration of the Israelitish kingdom was
expressed, a Messiah, or king, was expected,
who, descending from David, should also be
heir to his courage, power, and success, and
should bring back the glory of the past.

All Messianic expectations centred, there-
fore, in the requirement of a lineal descent of
the Messiah from the house of Dayid. None of
them, however, has ever proved his descent ;
and to-day such a proof has become entirely
impossible, as all traces have been lost.

The absurdity of upholding the hope in the
advent of a Messiah in our time or any future
time, will furthermore appear in a still more glar-
ing light if we take away its theoretical fanciful
garment, and translate it into practical reality.

Supposing a person should appear among us
who should be equipped with all the necessary
testimonials of his divine mission, even of his
lineal descent from David, if this could improve
his title ; supposing he should by some means
gather the Israelites from all parts of the world
and settle them again in Palestine, — would this
enhance our happiness .' Supposing, even, he
should find for us room and employment in the
new country, supposing all impossibilities should
be made possible 'by him, let me ask the one
question. What kind of a government do you
think the Messiah would establish .■• The re-
publican form would be entirely out of ques-

12 Messianic Expectations.

tion. Just imagine a Messiah elected for a term
of one, four, or seven years ; just imagine a
Messiah passing through the ordeal of a politi-
cal campaign in which not only his own record,
but that of his ancestors upward to David,
should be exposed and laid bare to ridicule !
No, those who' expect a Messiah must give up
forever the hope that he would establish a re-
publican government. Would it be a constitu-
tional monarchy ? Equally absurd. Imagine a
Messiah quarrelling with his parliament, and
the latter refusing to vote the necessary appro-
priations ! The only imaginable form of govern-
ment under a Messiah would be despotism.
Under his rule there would be no free thought,
no free speech, and surely no free press. No
opinion differing from that of the Messiah either
in politics or religion would be tolerated, and
should we call this happiness .' Would this
condition of slavery be the ne plus ultra of our
hopes and aspirations .' For this state of men-
tal stagnation should we be supposed to pray >
Absurd, thrice absurd.

At the time when the Jews were crowded
into the Ghetto ; at the time when our ancestors ,
were denied the most fundamental of all human
rights, namely, the right to 'live; at the time
when they were chased from country to coun-
try, and had to purchase at heavy expense the
privilege of breathing the foul air of their se-

Introductory. 13

eluded quarters ; at the time when ignorance
ruled supreme among them, and still more
among their oppressors ; at such a time all
fanciful hopes and fantastic expectations were
permissible, and no picture of Messianic hap-
piness could be overdrawn. Did they care
what kind of government a Messiah would
institute ? Did they care for liberty of speech
and freedom of the press ? They would have
kissed the feet of the most selfish despot, pro-
vided he would have granted them recognition,
and placed them on an equal footing with their
fellow citizens.

But we, the children of the nineteenth cen-
tury ; we, the free citizens of a free republican
country ; we, the graduates of the best schools
the world has seen ; we, whose hands have
learned to fold and cast a ballot, we do care
.under what kind of government we are placed ;
we do love the privileges of a republic, and
would not for the world change it for any other
form ; we do value free thought, free speech,
and free press, as the highest attainments of
humanity ; and we shall never renounce them.
How could we, therefore, be expected to yearn
after Messianic despotism ; how could we be
suspected of infidelity to a country which grants
us these boons, and of favoring Palestine, where
all these glorious privileges would have no
room ?

14 Messianic Expectations.

The hope in the advent of a Messiah and in
the restoration of Israel is surely dead. It has
died out in the heart of every intelligent Ameri-
can Israelite. As with the increase of knowl-
edge the horizon of the human mind has been
widened, as the universe has grown larger for us
than it ever was for bygone generations, as God
even has grown infinitely larger, mightier, and
holier than ever, thus our hopes have grown in
proportion. They have lost their national char-
acter, and have become universal. We have
given up all those fanciful notions of a political
restoration of Israel through the instrumentality
of a Messiah, and have adopted in their place-
the hope that all humanity will sometime reach
by steady evolution a degree of happiness far
beyond the present, and far beyond description ;
a state in which the evils still adhering to man-
kind will be removed, and its virtues increased
and developed. United, and hand in hand with
all our human brethren, we shall strive to ad-
vance toward this goal ; and if there must be a
distinction between us, let it be that of a gener-
ous competition as to who shall reach the mark
first.

"TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO."

y f PON what does the earth rest? This
l®J question greatly agitated the minds of
people before the time of Newton and
Copernicus. The answer was that it rests
upon the back of an enormous elephant. But
the inquisitiveness of human nature could not
be set at rest so easily. Another question was
raised : Upon what does the elephant rest ?
Answer : The elephant stands on top of an
immense turtle. Yet this answer even did not
give the desired satisfaction. The new question
turned up : Upon what does the turtle rest ?
Instead of answering this time, the scientist of
that age grumblingly complained in rather
strong language that one fool would be likely
to ask more questions than ten wise men could
answer; and thus the conundrum was never
solved.

Whenever we turn to historical research, we

are in a similar quandary. We lack a basis

which could safely carry our argument. We

brag a great deal about historical knowledge

15

1 6 Messianic Expectations.

and historical facts ; but whenever we are called
upon to bring them to light we find that our
knowledge is very limited ; that there are com-
paratively few real historical facts; and that
our so-called history, with all oui' argumentation
on top of it, floats, like that gigantic turtle, upon
nothing.

Ancient history especially has mixed up a few
grains of truth with such a bulk of fiction that
it is now well nigh impossible to sift the wheat
from the chaff. Some few scraps of statements
made by some writer as the facts appeared to
him individually, — for the most part not even
corroborated by a contemporary, — have been
handed down to us and palmed off on us as
history. But even if we were ready and willing
to accept the statements of a Herodotus, a
Tacitus, a Livy, or a Josephus, as plain and
absolute truth, with our best intentions we
could not supply another deficiency; namely,
that by the slow and laborious process of copy-
ing and recopying the manuscript by hand, in
course of time so much of the original must
have been changed, so many interpolations and
additions must have been added to it, that if
the original writer should be confronted to-day
with his works, he would probably deny his
authorship. And, after all, how did these
writers know.' History was never written at
the time when the facts occurred. The current

" Two Thousand Years Ago." \'j

of the present is so swift and rapid, the multi-
tude of facts taking place at every moment is so
overwhelming, that the quickest camera could
not take a correct negative of them. It is fur-
thermore impossible for men to be both actors
and spectators ; we cannot be at the same time
upon the stage and in front of it. History,
therefore, has always been written by posterity.
Now you will acknowledge that it would be a
difficult task to-day to write a correct history
of, let me say, the life of George Washington,
although we are in possession of the archives
containing all the official documents written or
signed by him ; although we have the files of
the newspapers published at his time at our dis-
posal, and many other advantages which the
historian of former ages never had at his com-
mand. Tacitus, for example, had never seen
Germany or Judea ; still he wrote extensively
about these countries. All his information was
obtained from soldiers who had been there ; and
he'took their yarns for facts : and we too have
become accustomed to take them for facts.
And this very Tacitus lived and wrote at a time
when the Romans stood at the summit of civili-
zation, and poets and writers were growing up
among them like mushrooms.

In regard to Jewish history, and subsequently
to that of the origin of Christianity, the entan-
glement is not less bewildering, although past

1 8 Messianic Expectations.

generatiqns have attempted to solve the diffi-
culty and to find a desirable historical basis by
cutting the Gordian knot in a somewhat pecu-
liar way. They picked out a certain number of
literary works relating their own history and
that of their nearest neighbors, and attributed
them to a divine authorship. They claimed
that God himself had dictated, word for word,
both the Old and the New Testament. From
such divine statements there was of course no
appeal. God, who knows the past as well as
the future, could not err; he stood- above all
human criticism : and it was a long time before
the Bible was submitted to a close historical
scrutiny. For centuries, it has been a heresy,
almost a crime, to doubt one iota of this sacred
literature; to doubt that Moses wrote all the
books attributed to him ; to doubt that the
Psalms were all written by David, or the Eccle-
siastes by Solomon ; to ask in what way and
by what means the first correct copy of the ora-
tions of the prophets was obtained, or to con-
sider these speeches as pertaining to their time
only, or to the immediate future ; and so on ad
infinitum. For the so-called believer there was
and is no appeal from the letter of scripture.

In my research after the origin of the Mes-
sianic idea, I shall, therefore, not argue with
the believers. Modern Judaism does not be-
lieve blindly : it reasons. Although I take a

" Two Thousand Years Ago." 19

just pride in the grand literature which our na-
tion iias brought forth and accumulated ; al-
though I maintain that all literature is inspired ;
that no man can write one single sentence un-
less he is divinely inspired ; the books of the
Bible are to me, as they are to every intelligent
man to-day, products of human, and not of
divine, authorship.

All the imperfections which adhere to human
productions adhere also to the Bible. The men
named as the authors of the different books
were not their authors in reality. The real
authors lived and wrote much later than the
facts occurred which they describe. They col-
lected their knowledge from tradition and hear-
say ; but though they wrote in good faith, and
according to their best understanding, without
the least desire to impose, their views must
have been limited. Neither can they be held
responsible for the changes in the text made by
copyists and revisers during the hundreds of
years which elapsed between them and the first
authentic edition which is in the possession of
our time. I shall, therefore, touch them but
slightly ; and I wish it understood, from the
start, that the renowned eleventh chapter of
Isaiah is nothing more to me than a beautiful
picture, painted in Eastern colors, of that time
of peace which the orator hoped humanity
would sooner or later reach. • If we were to

20 Messianic Expectations.

picture that time to-day, we should probably
give it a different coloring and a less pictur-
esque perspective ; but we should surely omit
the fourteenth verse as in contradiction to the
letter and the spirit of the whole previous ora-
tion, and as unbecoming to a true lover of
peace.* With no other or better material at
hand than scripture offers, I am, however, com-
pelled to rest some of my arguments upon the
turtle, and to let the turtle float wherever it
pleases you.

The first traces of a hope in the advent of
such a person as a Messiah are to be found not
earlier than in the time shortly before, during,
and shortly after, the Babylonian exile. The
calamities which had befallen, first the house of
Israel, and then the house of Judah, had so
discouraged the Israelites that they despaired
of their own ability to help themselves ; and
therefore they hoped for a miraculous interfe-
rence of God in their behalf.

They yearned for the independence of the
time of David, of which tradition must have
brought to them the most glorious reports. A
descendant of David was, therefore, to appear
and win for them again the respect of their

* Isaiah ii : 14. But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the
Philistines toward the west. Together shall they spoil the
children of the east; upon Edom and Moab shall they lay
their hands ; and the ohildren of Ammon shall obey them.

" Two Thousand Years Ago" 21

neighbors, and make their voice heard again in
the council of the nations.

There is nothing whatever that is unnatural
or absurd in such a hope. Up to the last two
decades, the Germans too were hoping for a
restoration of the German Empire to its former
mediaeval glory. Hundreds of beautiful myths
and legends predicted the return of the Kaiser
Frederick I., or, as he was popularly nicknamed,
Friedrich Barbarossa, "der Rothbart," who, as
the legend ran, had never died, but was sleep-
ing in the caves of the Kyffhauser Mountain.
With him a large army of valiant knights was
said to be concealed in the subterranean abode,
who would, at the proper season, awake and
break forth under his leadership to liberate
Germany and to restore its union. It was told
that, after every lapse of a hundred years, the
old emperor, whose beard had grown all around
the marble table upon which his head was rest-
ing, would call a sh'epherd to his cave, and
ask him whether the ravens were still flying
around the mountain-top ; and that upon his
affirming the fact, he would sadly exclaim,

" Und wenn die schwarzen Raben
Noch fliegen immer dar,
So muss ich nochmals schlafen
Verzaubert hundert Jahr."

One of the first and signal- deeds with which
Barbarossa was expected to astonish the world

22 Messianic Expectations.

was to wage a successful war against France.
What should you' think of it if, a thousand
years hence, a historian should prove by these
myths that the Germans had been expecting a
Messiah, and that he actually appeared in tfie
year 1862, but was called, not Barbarossa, but
Bismarck ?

The scraps of literature which we possess
relating to the time before and after the Baby-
lonian exile, and which seem to speak of a
Messiah, are of about the same character and
the same value as the legends of Barbarossa.
They express the hope of a down-trodden
nation in a restoration to former glory.

However, after the second Commonwealth
had been firmly established, though by far
different means than expected, after the second
temple had been built, the Jews enjoyed a
period of unprecedented prosperity. The yoke
of the Persian Empire rested lightly upon them.
They paid a small tribute ; and as long as they
paid it promptly, they remained unmolested.
All Messianic expectations were therefore for-
gotten.

During this long season of prosperity, the
original Mosaic doctrine maintaining the belief
in one God came to full bloom ; and idolatry,
formerly flourishing among them, died away
entirely. The laws collected and compiled by
Ezra, and firmly planted by Nehemiah, fitted

" Two Thousand Years Ago." 23

admirably to their condition. They were ex-
cellent laws, such as no olher nation could
boast of. The belief consequently grew up
that they were of divine origin ; and that as
long as the nation should strictly adhere to
them, it would be successful and prosperous ;
but that the slightest deviation from them
would again bring the wrath of God upon
the people, and that they should be exiled, as
their ancestors had been before.

When the Persian Empire fell a prey to
Alexander the Great, the condition of the Jews
was not materially changed. It was of little
importance to them to whom they paid their
taxes, whether to the Persians, Egyptians, or
Syrians. The closer intercourse with the
Greeks tended in the beginning rather to
broaden their own philosophy, and the Greeks,
who had been accustomed to call all other
nations barbarians, were, in their turn, greatly
astonished to find such just laws, such deep phil-
osophy, such high culture, in a nation of which
they had scarcely heard before.

But by degrees some of the Jewish youth
became attracted by Greek culture and customs.
At that time the cultured classes of the Greeks
were by no means gross idolaters. Socrates
had not died in vain, nor had Plato and Aris-
totle lived in vain. The practices of Greek
idolatry were at that period a mere conse-

24 Messianic Expectations.

quence of indolence. Idolatry had become too
absurd for the educated classes to attempt to
wean the rest of the people from it. Their
philosophers claimed that the lower classes
were in need of some superstition, and advised
to let well enough alone. When Hellenism
and Judaism finally clashed against each other,
the forcible introduction of Greek idols into
Palestine was more a matter of policy with
Antiochus than of sincerity. Though a few
young men sided with the Greeks, the mass of
the Jewish people were sincere in their attach-
ment to God. By no means would they suffer
the least idolatrous rite to be practised in their
country ; and the few who had been influenced
by the Greeks, and had adopted with their cus-
toms also the indolence and indifference of that
age towards religion, were decidedly in the
minority. While the Hasmonean wars may
appear as a religious warfare, well-informed
historians claim that they were a political con-
test. Antiochus wished to form one large and
well-cemented empire of all the small nations
which were tributary to him, that he might be
able to withstand the power of the Roman
Republic, which, since the fall of Carthage and
Corinth, had already spread its threatening
shadows in an eastern direction. He thought
it good policy to tie Judea to his domain by
the bonds of the same superstition, as all relig-

" Two Thousand Years Ago." 25

ion was called by the philosophers of that age.
But his policy was a mistaken one. Just here
the Jews drew the line. He would have found
them willing to pay any tribute whatsoever and
to render military service ; but they would not
permit their religious autonomy to be touched.
They flew to ^rms, and under the leadership
of the noble Hasmonean family, a contest
raging for several generations followed, which
was carried on with changing luck on both
sides. At the close of these wars, they found
to their greatest surprise that they had gained
more than they had ever expected. They had
originally fought for home rule only : now they
found themselves independent, their country
enlarged, with a king, — a descendant not of
David but of the Hasmonean house, — at their
head. They did not know how to account for
their good luck.

The people who had taken up arms for their
God and their religion, and who had been called
Chasidium, the pious, to distinguish them from
the frivolous Hellenistic element, now split
into two factions on account of it.

The greater part believed that their success
was the result of their obedience to the laws of
God ; that God had, in fact, interfered in their
behalf ; and that therefore theii* mission was
plain and self-evident. They must enforce the
law most rigorously, and refrain from all inter-

26 Messianic Expectations.

course with other nations, especially with the
Greek. They were called Pharisees, Perushim,
interpreters of the law ; but they were consci-
entious, and by. no means hypocrites. The
other class had seen more of the world. It
was composed of all those who not only had
been the leaders in previous battles, but who
had obtained as statesmen, by shrewd political
wire-pulling, more than their swords could ever
have won for them. They knew the secret of
their success. Their good luck had been the
result of Roman influence. That great and in-
satiable republic had stretched its hand nearer
and nearer towards its prey. Divide and rule
had been its motto. It had taken up quite dis-
interestedly, as it then appeared, the Jewish
cause, as well as that of the other tributaries of
which the Syrian kingdom was composed, and
had assumed the r61e of a protector over them.
Little did these small nations dream at that
time that after the fall of Syria and Egypt their
turn would come to be annexed to the Roman
Empire.

The Sadducees, as they were called, who had
been prominent in all the political manoeu-
vrings, knew, therefore, too well that rigor and
a blind belief in the help of God would not do ;
that they mvtst yield to a compromise; or, in
other words, that they must not totally ignore
.the present. This split in the formerly com-

" Two Thousand Years Ago." 27

pact party accelerated, though it did not cause,
the doom of the Jewish nation.

Indeed, their dream of independence and the
lustre of the Hasmonean dynasty were of a
short duration only. Judea became a Roman
province before the inhabitants became aware
of it ; and, while the Roman senate left to
them some shadow of self-government, it had
already fastened the shackles to the victim.
When the Jews came to themselves, they found
themselves tied, hand and foot, in the power of
an almighty foe. Their condition, indeed, was
then most pitiable. Their independence was
crushed, their king a mere puppet in the hands
of the Roman Caesars, their high priest without
authority, their laws set at nought by the
whims of the Roman proconsul. Roman le-
gions fattened at the public expense : rapacious
Roman procurators drained the resources of the
land by heavy- taxation.

Jerusalem had then three separate courts,
which rivalled one another in luxury. There
was the high priest and his household, and with
him all the temple functionaries, who were sup-
ported in grand style by the reverence of the
people and from fear that God would withdraw
his protection from them unless every tax which
was due to the temple were scrupulously paid.
Next came the royal household, the dignity of
which was to be upheld at a heavy expense.

28 Messianic Expectations.

Finally, there was the Roman governor, who
knew perfectly well how to make a public office
pay, and who imitated the extravagance of Rome.
No wonder that times were hard for the tax-
payer ; no wonder that the peaceful real-estate
owner grew riotous ; no wonder that the burden
became unbearable, and that the nation despaired
of itself. At this period of national calamity,
at the time when the days of the Jewish com-
monwealth were already numbered, the hope
broke forth with new vigor that, as human
efforts were of no avail, God himself would,
must, interfere and set matters aright. The
first commonwealth had fallen on account of
the sins of their forefathers ; but this time they
were innocent : they had strictly obeyed the
law ; and God, if he were just, was in honor
bound to come to their rescue. Neither was
there any cause to doubt the ability of God to
save them. Had he not returned the captives
to the land of their^ forefathers } Had he not
assisted their very parents and grandparents , in
their struggle against the power of Syria?
There was not the least doubt in their minds
that the present time was only a time of trial,
and that God would soon rectify matters.
During the Hasmonean era, the prophetical
books had become quite popular. They were
now read and re-read with eagerness, and were
naturally interpreted to fit the present needs

" Two Thousand Years Ago." 29

and hopes. The idea spread that, as the de-
scendants of the Hasmonean house had not the
courage to oppose the greed of rapacious Rome,
they had forfeited their right to the throne ;
and that a scion of the house of David would
therefore be sent by God, who should drive the
Romans out of the country, and bring back the
former independence and glory.

The maltreated, overtaxed farmer, the unem-
ployed artisan, the bankrupt merchant, the de-
moralized soldier, the aristocrat who had to bend
his head before the haughty Roman magistrate,
— they all drank eagerly the hope of the advent
of a Messiah, and awaited impatiently the favor-
able moment when, sword in hand, they could
shake off the yoke of the oppressor ; and they
had not the least doubf that, at that auspicious
moment, God would send the right man, to lead
them to success.

But there were also people who were not half
so sanguine as their more zealous neighbors.
They knew that a revolt against Rome would
be useless. Rome could only take of him who
owned property ; and it was only for the im-
provement of the condition of the property-
holder that war was to be undertaken. They
sought, therefore, safety in a change of the
whole social system. Nihilisti9 and communis-
tic tendencies began to develop. These classes
too were expecting the man who should have

30 Messianic Expectations.

the power of establishing an ideal society after
their heart ; and who would, according to the
peculiar language which they used, save the
world.

The hope in the advent of a king duly
anointed for his office, who would improve the
state of affairs, grew stronger and mightier
every day the more unbearable the national ,
misery grew. It was again the natural growth
of the unhealthy condition of the time ; and the
sicker the national body grew, the wider spread
and the more intense grew the mania.

The Roman authorities on their part wished
for nothing better than that a crisis should be
reached as soon as possible ; and they rather
stimulated a revolt of the people, in order to
obtain a pretext for crusHing the nation at once.
They, too, were wishing that the Messiah, with
whose appearance they were threatened day by
day, would come. They had nothing to lose,
and all to win. And thus day by day added to
the fuel, which, if fired by an over-zealous or
uncautious hand would spread its conflagration
over the land.

In vain did the cautious among the people
raise their voice of warning ; they could not
undo what generations had prepared. Such
was the condition of the time shortly before the
destruction of the second temple ; and the first
flash of lightning which appeared and disap-

" Two Thousand Years Ago." ' 31

peared in the political sky of the second com-
monwealth, the appearance of Jesus of Naza-
reth, predicted the coming hurricane which
s"Wept the Jewish nation, politically, from the
face of the earth.

III.

"THE CARPENTER'S SON."

' T is not without some hesitation nor without
some embarrassment that I open the dis^
cussion of the life and mission of a man
who, though he sprang from Jewish parent-
age, and is said to have lived the life of a con-
scientious Jew, has been placed between our
race and the rest of civilized humanity as a
barrier to exclude us from a more intimate
intercourse with our fellow-men ; whose very
name still alienates from lis to-day the affection
of our fellow-citizens, though almost nineteen
centuries have passed since its bearer walked
the ground of Palestine. Neither must I lose
sight of the veneration in which he is held by
our Christian friends, many of whom love in
him the ideal of a magnanimous, high-minded,
and noble man; while millions of others still
confide in him in life and in death, and adore
and worship him as a God. It is, therefore, not
more than simple courtesy on our part if we
respect their feelings, as we wish our own re-
spected, and if we discuss our subject with as
32

" The Carpentet's Son." 33

much careful delicacy and tenderness as we can
possibly grant to a historical research, which is
intended not to obtain notoriety, but to instruct ;
to weed out existing prejudices, and to establish
a better understanding between us. I beg you,
therefore, to distinguish well between the ideal
Jesus, who has been a creation of Christianity,
and the historical Jesus of Nazareth as he lived
and died.

You can imagine at any time, if you so choose,
a human ^ody in such giantlike proportions that
its head should- reach the zenith while its feet
should touch the nadir. In the very same way,
you may imagine all the qualities of the human
soul raised to their highest degree of perfection.
We Israelites are accustomed to attribute these
qualities of the spirit in their highest perfection
to an ihvisible God ; to the One God who has
created the universe, and supports and governs
it in wisdom and love ; while our Christian
friends have become accustomed to affix these
very same attributes to a human form, to that
of Jesus of Nazareth. Herein we differ ; and,
therefore, I shall have nothing to say concern-
ing the ideal structure which has been built up
during the last nineteen centuries, which is in
the process of building yet, and which will not
be finished before humanity has reached the
highest round on the ladder of civilization.

I beg also to di^r historically in two other

34 Messianic Expectations.

points with our Christian friends ; and I hope
they will not consider my utterances as disre--
spectful. I maintain that Jesus was not the
founder of Christianity ; that he never planned
it nor laid its foundation ; but that his personal-
ity has been brought into the Church, and used
as its corner-stone. I claim, furthermore, that
there are no historical sources whatsoever from
which we could derive authentic information
concerning his life, his deeds, and his death.
This point is of such grave importance that I
must dwell on it, with your permission, a minute
or two before I proceed one step further.

There are only three sources from which it
has become customary to quote in regard to
Jesus of Nazareth. The first and foremost of
them is the New Testament. Again I must
caution my hearers that I do not belieVe in a
divine authorship of any book whatsoever, be it
called the Old or the New Testament, and that
I shall always refrain from arguing a historical
point with a so-called believer. If one wishes
to believe that Homer was divinely inspired, and
that the Iliad and Odyssey were dictated to him
by God himself, and that therefore these books
must be true, word for word, I shall not object.
Let him believe, then, that Cyclops Polyphemus
had but one eye in his forehead, and that Ulysses
blinded him ; let him believe that the hero
visited Hades, and conversed with his former

" The Carpenter's Son" 35

friends ; let him believe whatever he pleases.
But when we come to discuss historical facts,
we must be unhampered by belief. Bibliogra-
phers have long since proved that the Four
Gospels, which, after all, contradict one another
in important points, were written more than a
century later than the death of Jesus ; not by
eye-witnesses, but by people who collected their
material from tradition, and who had already a
principle, a theory, to affirm by their story. I
do not question at all their veracity or sincerity ;
but they lacked for their narrative the authentic
material, and could not help being biassed in
their judgment. These literary products lose
still more in the eye of the critic by the fact
that the original text has been tampered with
since. Only of late, a scrap of parchment has
been discovered which contains a passage from
one of the Gospels. Scientists place its age as
far back as the third and fourth century. In it
an important passage, relating to the promised
return of Jesus, is entirely omitted ; which would
prove, if it proves anything, that still later than
the fourth century interpolations, if we shall not
call them falsifications, of the original text, must
have taken place. A jury which finds the tes-
timony of a witness unreliable in one point
generaHy throws out his testimony entirely ;
and so does the historian. To him the Gospels
are of little historical value.

36 Messianic Expectations.

The second source is the historian Josephus,
who lived at the time of Jesus, and consequently
must have known of him, if the latter had, in-
deed, been a distinguished person or of any
prominence. Though he gave considerable
space to the narrative of minor events, Josephus
originally never mentioned him. The cele-
brated and frequently quoted passage in his
Antiquities (book xviii., chapter 3,) has been
condemned by authorities, such as Nathaniel
Lardner, as an interpolation ; and Origen, the
great Christian writer of the third century,
shows by his writings contra Celsum that he did
not know of that passage, which consequently
must have been inserted much later and for a
purpose.* Another historian, Justus of Tibe-

* I shall briefly give the arguments of Dr. Lardner, a very
learned Presbyterian clergyman, who flourished in the early
part of the last century. The passage reads thus : —

" At the time lived Jesus, a wise man, if he may be called a
man; for he performed many wonderful works. He was a
teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He
drew over to him many Jews and Gentiles. This was the
Christ; and when Pilate, at the instigation of the chief men
among us, had condemned him to the cross, they who before
had conceived an affection for him did not cease to adore him.
For on the third day he appeared to them alive again; the divine
Prophets having foretold these and many other wonderful things
concerning him; and the sect of Christians, so called from him,
subsists to this time."

I have italicized the parts which Dr. Lardner criticised at
, length, occupying several pages (London edition, vol. vi., p.
487), but which I shall abridge. They are as follows : —

" The Carpenter's Son." ' 37

rias, lived at the same time ; but not a word did
he mention about the man who, according to the
Gospels, must have created quite a stir.

1. This paragraph is not referred to by any Christian writer
before Eusebius (in the fourth century), — the Greek fathers,
such as Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen, and the Latin fathers Minucius, Felix, Cyprian, Arro-
bius and Lactantius, nor by Chrysostom, a contemporary of
Eusebius. These were all well acquainted with the writings of
Josephus, and quote him in their works. Dr. L. says : " So
extraordinary a testimony to our Saviour, in so celebrated a
Jewish writer, should not have been unknown to them, if it had
been in him."

2. This passage was wanting in copies of Josephus which
were seen by Photius in the ninth century. The said writer in
his Biblioteque had no less than three articles concerning
Josephus, and never notices such an important testimony; nay,
more ; Photius says : " This writer (Josephus), being a preju-
diced Jew, makes not even the least mention concerning him
(Christ) or the miracles done by him,"

3. It interrupts the narrative ; Josephus begins the chapter
with a riot that took place in Jerusalem, in which a number of
Jews were killed and wounded; then comes the paragraph
above quoted, and next follows that another calamity befel the
Jews. The reader will readily perceive thdt the paragraph
which was stuck in between the first and second, or another
calamity, is an interpolation ; it is out of place.

4. If Josephus was a Jew, he admitted too muck; and if
a Christian, he said too little about Christ. I must add only
one quotation — the idea would not strike an ordinary reader.
He drew over to him many Jews and Gentiles. That is not
true of the Lord Jesus, if intended of his own personal preach-
ing ; it was done indeed afterward. But this manner of speak-
ing is more suitable to a writer of the second or third century
than to Josephus.

Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(Harper's ed., chap. 16, p. 298, in a note), says : " The passage

38 Messianic Expectations,

The third source is the Talmud ; but here
again we find an ominous silence concerning
him. Not before the time that our ancestors
were called upon to contest the religious struc-
ture which began to grow up upon him as its
corner-stone, and to defend themselves against
calumnious charges, is he mentioned, and then
only slightly.

Besides these three sources, another argument
is frequently brought into use in order to prove
not only his existence, but his greatness. Be-
hold, say our Christian friends, the marvellous
growth of Christianity ! See how it revolution-
ized the world, how it civilized the most bar-
barous nations ! Could such a success have
been achieved if its founder had not been a

concerning Jesus Christ which was inserted into the text of
Josephus between the time of Origen and that of Eusebius may
furnish an example of no vulgar forgery ; and if any doubt still
remains (here he refers to several writers who have proved it a
falsity), it would appear pedantic were I to copy the names of
eminent theologians who have written against or rejected the
said passage ; the proofs that it forms one of the numerous
frauds which the Christians of the first three centuries deemed
a virtue are overwhelming. The truth is, had Jesus really
been the important personage represented^ Josephus would
doubtless have noticed him either as n. God, a prophet, or an
impostor ; but as he mentions John the Baptist, and is utterly
silent about Jesus, we may reasonably conclude either there
was no such person, or that he was then deemed too insignifi-
cant, and that Josephus never heard about the crucifixion or
anything concerning him." — From an article of Jacob Norton,
published in the American Israelite in April, 1S64.

" The Carpenter's Son," 39

man of great prominence, if he had not been
able to impress his contemporaries with his
mission to such an extent as was needed for
the future success? Granted, they say, that
there are no authentic literary evidences to be
found ^ concerning his life and deeds; is the
mere existence oi the Church not evidence
enough for his greatness ? Do not facts prove
more than words ?

This argument, however rational and reasona-
ble it may appear, stands upon weak and tender
feet. Indeed, if the plans for the Christian
Church had emanated from him, if its doctrines
had been promulgated by him, if its system had
been suggested by him, then we could conclude
from the work about its creator. But, even
according to Christian sources, nobody dreamed
less of such a structure than its supposed origi-
nator. Christianity was not his work ; it was
the product of peculiar circumstances, which all
worked together in such a marvellous manner
that we cannot fail to see the finger of God in
its origin and development. The downfall of
Hellenistic idolatry, which had been prepared
by Greek philosophy long before ; the extinc-
tion of the Roman Republic and the decline of
the Roman Empire ; the great migration of
nations, which, issuing from the north, took a
southward course, and changed the geography
of the world; the death of antique civilization

40 Messianic Expectations.

in the waves of barbarism, which, like a second
flood, burst upon it, and covered the whole
world for a considerable length of time, — all
these circumstances together produced what
to-day is called Christianity. Nothing can live
in this sublunary world unless it is marked for
life by God Almighty. Nothing succeeds un-
less God has destined it for success ; and thus
has Christianity a place on this earth and a
mission to fulfil as well as Judaism. And in
the course of my lectures I shall with pleasure
give due acknowledgment to the great work
which Christianity has indeed performed.

Taking it all in all, what may we reasonably
presume about Jesus of Nazareth, the so-called
Messiah .' Although volumes have been written
concerning his life and deeds, his whole history
could be inscribed almost upon the nail of
a thumb.

Jeshu, an abbreviation of Joshua, and Latin-
ized into Jesus, was born of humble parentage.
He was the son of Joseph, a poor carpenter,
and Miriam, his wife, who were also the parents
of several other children. It matters little to
the historian that millions of people still ascribe
to him a divine origin, and believe him the off-
spring of an immaculate conception. There
are many more millions of people who believe
to-day the very same story, but apply it to
another man, to Buddha. Not only are such

" The Carpenter's Son." 41

statements unhistorical, but I dare say thai the
passages in the Gospels relating to them were
never written by a Jewish author : they were
the products of a Grecian pen. The Greeks
believed in the intercourse of their gods with
mortal women, and saw no disgrace in such an
adultery. All- their heroes were demi-gods.
Even Alexander the Great attempted to insinu-
ate that Philip was not his real father, and that
he was the son of a god. Greek vanity cared
little that the chastity of their women was ques-
tioned whenever the customary compliment
was rendered to a man by calling him the son
of a god. The Greek and Roman populace
would have never believed in Jesus the man,
the reformer, the martyr, or the Messiah ; but
it was easy for them to accept him a^ the son
of the Jewish God, Jehovah. The Jews, on the
contrary, held the chastity of their women in
so high a respect that they would not permit
even a god to violate it.

About his childhood and early education
nothing is known. He is said to have learned
the trade of his father, that of a carpenter.
Grown up to the age of manhood, he joined the
sect of the Essenes, which was mostly com-
posed of artisans, and represented the socialistic
and nihilistic element of which I have spoken
in my last lecture. They despised all earthly
possessions, would not hold property, lived to-

42 Messianic Expectations.

gether in small bands, sharing everything in
commoh. They would not marry : they believed
that a change for the better could be effected
only by an ascetic life, and that the Messiah
whom every Jew was expecting at that , time
would transform the whole world into one
large communistic brotherhood, in which there
should be neither rich nor poor, and from which
all the passions adhering to mankind should
be removed. He may have grown into promi-
nence in the rural districts where he sojourned.
He may have spoken of the change which he
expected to come over the world, with such a
sincerity that, as is quite natural, his friends
expected him to produce the change, and may
have looked at him as the Messiah. Let me
state right here that the name Messiah, or, as
it is in Hebrew, Mashiach, is a misnomer, if
applied to him ; for he never was anointed for
his mission by any authority whatsoever, real
or fictitious. How can, therefore, a man be
called Mashiach, the Anointed, the Christ, if he
never was anointed.' Even Christian sources
do not claim that the act of anointment was
ever performed on him.

Finally, perhaps he learned to believe in
himself. A great many people do believe in
themselves without being conceited. There
would be no heroism if the hero did not believe
in his own ability- to perform the heroic deed.

" The Carpenter's Son." 43

Young men especially are apt to carry such a
belief to an extreme ; and he was a young man.
At the time of his death, he was not older than
thirty-three years ; the most dangerous period
of life, in which the young man attempts to
transform his airy ideals into tangible facts.

The most critical season of the year was, at
that time, the Passover Festival ; a festival
celebrated in remembrance of the liberation of
Israel from Egyptian bondage. Every male
person was bound to be present in Jerusalem
during the seven days of this festival ; and the
spirit of liberty ran higher then than usual.
The Roman procurator found it, therefore,
always necessary to be present in person in
the city, in order to quell any disturbance which
was likely to arise, and to nip every revolt in
the bud. You will perhaps understand much
better the danger which the return of every
Passover Festival brought to the front, if you
place yourselves for one moment in the condi-
tion of that time.

Supposing our cherished Republic should
have been changed into a despotic government ;
supposing some other nation stronger than we
should defeat us in battle, and should keep us
in a state of servitude ; supposing that the
indignation of the American people should
watch for an opportune moment to break the
chains of such a slavery ; would not the Fourth

44 Messianic Expectations.

of July then become the most critical and dan-
gerous of all the days of the year ? The remem-
brance of the glorious day when the heroic
fathers of the country declared their indepen-
dence would invite emulation. Any orator of
mediocrity even could on that day stir up the
people to riot and bloodshed.

The representative of the government then
in power would, as a matter of course, be
watchful of every movement, and have his sol-
diers in readiness to quell any disturbance. He
would be at his post of duty on that day from
morning till night, and feel relieved only when
the last hour of that dangerous day had passed
and the last fire-cracker had been set off.

In a similar plight was the Roman governor
during the feast of Passover. His troops were
stationed with great skill at the most important
posts, and the garrison of Jerusalem re-en-
forced : police in uniform and detectives in
disguise probably patrolled the streets, and re-
ported promptly at headquarters. It may easily
have happened when Jesus entered Jerusalem a
few days before the festival that he was recog-
nized and cheered by his rural friends : it is
probable that the rumor spread among the
people, which was ready for a revolt, that a
Messiah had appeared, and would give the sig-
nal at the opportune m'oment : it is more than
probable that this rumor reached the Roman

" The Carpenter's Son." 45

authorities after it had been magnified to a
large extent. The natural consequence was
that Jesus was watched with suspicion ; that
every one of his steps was carefully guarded,
and that just before the festival he was taken
captive. Pontius Pilatus risked a coup de main.
If Jesus was the Messiah indeed, his prompt
imprisonment and execution would either in-
timidate the people and suppress the outbreak
of a riot for some years, or it would make the
people rise in arms at once, and hasten the
crisis. Either way pleased the haughty Roman
much better than the suspense in which he now
was kept all the time.

His calculation was as correct as it was
shrewd ; but he was mistaken, nevertheless.
-The people would have risen in revolt if the
great mass had considered the Galilean the
right man to liberate them. "Bu, .hey expected
a warrior, not a man of peaceful disposition :
they expected a man of arms, and not a the-
orist. Neither was he an offspring of the house
of David. The masses remained cold and in-
different when they heard of his arrest ; and
even the few friends of the unhappy Messiah
deserted him in the hour of trial.

There is no evidence that he ever was tried
before a Jewish tribunal, for the right of
capital punishment had been usurped by the
Romans long before ; and even if there had

46 Messianic Expectations.

been such a trial, he must have been acquitted,
because the sympathies of his fellow-citizens
would have been with him. But he was not
tried or convicted by a regular Jewish court, as,
on account of the holy day, there was no ses-
sion. He was simply judged and convicted by
the Roman authorities on the charge of con-
spiring against the Roman government ; and he
was executed in great haste the very next day,
at a time when the assembled people witnessed
the grand passover ceremonial In the tem-
ple. The mode of crucifixion was a Roman
mode of execution ; and the inscription Jesus
Nazaraeus, Rex Judaeorum, Jesus of Nazareth,
King of the Jews, which is said to have been
affixed to his cross, was to show the charge
which had been made against him.

Now this is a point upon which I must dwell a
few moments longer. The malicious charge that
the Jewish people, nineteen hundred years ago,
tried, convicted, and executed an innocent man,
has brought upon us indescribable misery, and
bears even to-day its bitter fruit. This charge
has been the cause of wholesale murder ; and
for nineteen centuries has our nation been per-
secuted for no other offence than that their
ancestors had crucified Jesus. We were, and '
are still, called deicides, or, as vulgar language
expresses it, Christ-killers. Absurd as it is to
hold us responsible for an act committed by our

" The Carpenter's Son." 47

ancestors nineteen hundred years ago, as ridicu-
lous would it be for us to try to find an excuse
for it. Granted that our ancestors were, in
fact, the cause of his premature death, there is
no excuse needed ; for as long as capital pun-
ishment is not abolished, and circumstantial
evidence is used to convict a criminal, or as
long as political offences are punished with
death, so long will cases of judicial murder
never be avoided.

But the charge is as false as it is malicious.
Scan the Jewish law from its beginning to its
end and you will not find' that such a trial as
related in the Gospels could have taken place.
The whole form of the proceeding as told in
the Gospels is illegal according to the forms
minutely described by the Jewish law. It
shows again that the writers of the Gospels
were not Jews, but must have been Greeks or
Romans, who were ignorant of the Jewish law.
And so it was ; and with this fact the whole
charge collapses. The whole charge was a fab-
rication of the early Church. At the time
when the Gospels were written, most of the
members of the Church were Gentiles ; and it
was at that time already evident that the Gen-
tile world, and not the limited Jewish circle,
was to be the future field for the missionary
efforts of the Church.

How could a missionary approach a Roman

48 Messianic Expectations.

and tell him that his people had put to death
the Son of God, their Saviour ? Such a state-
ment would have alienated the whole world
from them ; for the Roman Empire comprised
almost the whole of the known world, and
every individual took a certain pride in being a
Roman citizen. The Jews, on the other hand,
were only a small nation. They were then liv-
ing in small communities scattered over all the
provinces of the Roman Empire. They were
furthermore disliked on account of their rigor-
ous laws, which would not allow their amalga-
mation with their neighbors. They were hated
at the imperial court on account of their obsti-
nacy and the riotous character which they
showed in frequent revolts. The charge was
therefore laid before their door; and the
Roman was told that the Jews had killed his
Saviour ; that the Roman authorities even had
endeavored to save him from the violence of
the populace, but had been unsuccessful. Such
a story was pleasing to the Gentile world, and
to a Roman it seemed both probable and plausi-
ble. The masses, which gained by it a pretext
for venting their anger on a class which they
hated, did not investigate the matter any fur-
ther ; and thus the unfounded and malicious
charge, was handed down from generation to
generation to this very day. Is it not high
time that our liberal age and our enlightened

" The Carpenter's Son." 49

fellow-citizens should finally drop that malicious
charge, which, even if it were not a fabrication,
could not reflect upon us ? Is it not high time
that bigotry and fanaticism should be silenced,
and that the rising generations should be in-
structed to take those legends for what they are
worth? It is not the Jew who is disgraced
when the epithet of deicide or Christ-killer is
hurled at him : it is the one who uses it ; be-
cause this very expression gives unmistakable
evidence, not only of his bigotry, his intoler-
ance, and of his bad breeding, but of his igno-
rance ; and, not for our own sake, but for his
sake, I stand here and appeal to you to spread
enlightenment wherever you can in regard to
such an important matter.

IV.

JUDAISM THE MOTHER, AND CHRISTIANITY
THE DAUGHTER.

'HE time when Christianity was born was
as peculiar and as remarkable in regard
^ to religious matters as is perhaps our own
present age. Then, as to-day, the edu-
cated classes, the pioneers of civilization, were
ready for a change of front. Old ideas had out-
lived their usefulness, and the new ones had
not -yet developed far enough to take their
places. The minds of the best and most con-
scientious men were therefore kept in a constant
tension. The old pagan gods had lost their
reputation, and the world was yearning for a
God who should fill the void in the human
heart. Though the most magnificent temples
were erected at that period, there was an utter
lack of true religious sentiment, and hypocrisy
ran high. The splendor of the temples and the
very attractions which the priests were com-
pelled to offer, were unmistakable evidence that
rites and ceremonies had lost their meaning,
and with it their influence upon the worshipper.
At that time, the eye of the pagan world, in-
5°

Mother and Daughter. 5 1

stinctively turned toward the Jews. Their the-
ology was pure, their doctrines founded upon
philosophy, their laws just and comprehensive,
their rites elevating and soul-inspiring, their
ethics unsurpassed. Their intercourse with
Greeks and Romans had introduced them to
the world. They had multiplied, and were to
be found everywhere. There were as that time
more Israelites outside of Palestine than within.
Large colonies of Jews were to be found in
Persia and along the whole coast of Asia Minor :
they had settlements in Greece, in Spain; in
Gaul, in Italy, and especially in Rome. In
Egypt they were almost the masters. They
were the leading statesmen : they commanded
the armies : they were the magnates of com-
merce and the owners of factories. In Leon-
topolis they owned a temple which rivalled in
beauty and elegance that of Jerusalem. In
Alexandria they had a number of synagogues,
the most prominent of which is reported to have
been of such dimensions that the loudest voice
could not be heard from end to end, and that
therefore a flag was waved from an elevated
stand whenever the congregation was requested
to rise and to join in the Amen. But what is
of still greater importance, the Pentateuch had
been translated into the Greek language. The
Septuaginta, as this translation was called, had
become a standard work ; and all men of intelli-

52 Messianic Expectations.

gence and learning had become familiar with it.
No wonder, therefore, that Gentiles in large
numbers embraced Judaism. From the interior
of Asia a princess came with all her family to
be initiated into the Jewish religion.

It is said, and it is well said, that every man
has once in his life an opportune moment when
he can make his fortune, but that only very few
take hold of it, while the rest let it slip from
their grasp. The same holds good for nations.
That very period was the time when Judaism
could have conquered the world. It would be
an idle play of imagination for us to conjecture
what our present condition would have been if
our ancestors had made proper and prompt use
of their opportunity. Alas, they did not. Per-
haps an all-wise Providence had destined it for
good reasons that they should not. There
were two obstacles which then hindered the
spreading of Judaism. In the first place, its
customs were too rigorous. The Gentiles,
though they acknowledged the correctness of
Jewish theology and the purity of its ethics,
were unwilling to submit to the Abrahamitic
rite, to the table laws, and to the minute pre-
scriptions concerning cleanliness. Judaism, on
its part, was not ready to compromise with them,
because, and this was the second obstacle, it
was too aristocratic. Its doctrines maintained
that the Israelites were a people chosen by God ;

Mother and Daughter. 5 3

that the much admired laws were given to them
for their own welfare ; and that it was obligatory
for them to guard, but not to spread them.
Judaism, of course, would not reject the stranger
who would knock at its doors ; it would accept
him cheerfully, provided he would take upon
himself the whole burden of the law without
any haggling ; but it would not proselyte ; it
would not go and coax or force the stranger to
come in. If these two obstacles could have
been removed, the mastery of the world would
have fallen as a consequence into the lap of
Judaism.

There was one man living at that time who
saw the golden apple hanging within such easy
reach ; he stretched forth his arm and broke it,
but, alas, not for his own nation. It was Saul
of Tarsus, better known as Paul. To him owes
Christianity its life. Paul was no rabbi. He
was no scholar whatsoever, nor was he versed
in Jewish literature. He knew the Bible in its
Greek version only ; he would misquote, in his
letters to the Corinthians, a passage in Isaiah
as occurring in the Pentateuch,* but for all his
ignorance in letters, he was zealous and practi-
cal. Observing that Judaism could not and
would not allow one letter of the law to be
changed, he embraced with eagerness the

* Reuchlin, Sebastian Munster, Egidio de Viterbo, and
others.

54 Messianic Expectations.

legends of the crucified Jesus, which must have
reached him in an exaggerated form ; and, with-
out having ever known him, he made him the
corner-stone of the building which he proposed
to erect. There was an old saying that the
Messiah would do away with the law, as he
would naturally usurp the power of issuing new
orders. Paul made use of it, and accepted
Jesus as the Messiah, no matter-' whether he
had fulfilled what was expected of a Messiah or
not. It was sufficient for him that a Messiah
had appeared ; for this gave him a handle to
change or to abolish as much of the law as he,
Paul, saw fit. With one stroke of the pen, as
we should say, he removed one of the obstacles :
he admitted Gentiles into Judaism without
the performance of the Abrahamitic rite, and
allowed them to eat whatever they pleased.
Denounced by his Jewish brethren as a law-
breaker, and distrusted even by the personal
friends of the unfortunate Galilean, who were
shocked to hear the words of their master in-
terpreted by a stranger in such a peculiar way,
Paul sought and found his friends among Gen-
tiles. Supplying a long-felt want, his career
became a success in spite of all the obstacles
which beset his way. He was the first mis-
sionary whom the world has seen. Christian
congregations grew up under the very print
which his foot left upon the ground.

Mother and Daughter, ■ 55

With him the Messianic idea, formerly local,
took a universal turn. The Messiah now ceased
to be an anointed king, expected to remove the
political misery of the Jewish nation. He grew
into a divine messenger, a son of God, sent
from heaven to earth to save all mankind from
the effect of sin. Though having been put to
death, he would soon return, and hold stem
judgment over the world. His friends would
be royally rewarded, his enemies unmercifully
punished. Thus the Messianic idea became a
necessity for the Paulinian Church. Without
it, it lacked all authority for the inroads made
upon the law, the grandeur of which still re-
mained the centre of attraction to the pagan
world.

It would take years should I attempt to trace
in weekly lectures the rise and growth of Chris-
tianity. May it suffice that I show to you its
source, and that I establish the fact that it was
built by Paul from sheer necessity, upon a mis-
taken interpretation of the Messianic idea, with
which it stands and falls.

In the meantime, the Jews witnessed the ap-
pearance of another Messiah. His name was
Theudas. He shared the fate of Jesus. Fadus,
the Roman governor, caught him and his band,
and beheaded him^ Pilate did exactly the same
which Fadus did a few years later ; but nobody
would claim to-day that the Jews tried and sen-

56 Messianic Expectations.

tenced Theudas : nobody would hold them
responsible for his death. Theudas, however,
must have gained more notoriety than Jesus
ever did at his time ; for Josephus granted him
a considerable space in his history.

When finally the cup of misery was full to
the brim, and no help came from outside, the
people arose in arms. A short but fierce strug-
gle followed. Titus and his legions stormed
Jerusalem, laid the temple in ashes ; and with
the destruction of Jerusalem Israel was stricken
forever from the list of nations.

The seed planted by Paul had in the mean-
time grown up, and kept on growing. Christi-
anity spread from day to day; and the daughter
soon severed all connections with her mother.
She went her own way ; for she had a mission
of her own to fulfil ; a mission which neither
Judaism nor Hellenism could have fulfilled with
success: she had to civilize a world of barba-
rians. Judaism would have failed on account
of its rigor : Hellenism, on account of its self-
ishness. Greek philosophy cared little for the
welfare of mankind as a species : its attempts
were directed toward individual happiness. But
it forgot that individual happiness and national
happiness stand in a mutual relation to each
other, and that the one is impossible without
the other. Whenever it failed to secure indi-
vidual happiness, it was at a loss to account for

Mother and Daughter, 57

it, and advised to escape the miseries of life by
suicide. This was its last and only remedy.
Nature, however, abhors destruction : neither
the Epicurean nor the Stoic schools could ever
win the favor of the masses. A Greek philoso-
pher would have ridiculed it as absurd to stoop
down to a slave or a barbarian, in order to edu-
cate him to higher and better principles. Not so
Christianity. From her mother she had inher-
ited the principles of freedom and equality ; the
principle of one God and one human brother-
hood. From her she had learned the maxim,
Love thy neighbor as thyself. Equipped with
these gems from her mother's treasury, adorned
with the ten sparkling diamonds of the Sinaitic
law, she entered upon her path. What we
should call to elevate or civilize was called by
her to save ; and to save the world she was
bound. Let us give honor where honor is due.
With unexcelled heroism, the disciple of the
early Church would seek strange countries,
savage nations, always carrying his life in his
hands. He would fearlessly enter the cabin of
barbarians, suffer their scorn, their anger, even
death from their hands. He would never flinch
nor shirk his duty. And such heroism over-
awed the barbarian : he submitted, and bowed
before the new God.

There is a steel £ngraving, to be found in al-
most every large picture store, representing the

58 Messianic Expectations.

following scene : Two savage-looking gladiators
are seen fighting in the Circus Maximus of
Rome, for the amusement of the masses. One
has succeeded in throwing the net over his
opponent, and in forcing him to the ground.
His eyes beam with passion : he craves the
blood of his victim.- "Uplifted in his sinewy
arm, he holds the trident, a fearful weapon,
wherewith to deal the deadly blow ; when, lo
and behold ! a disciple of the early Church fear-
lessly places himself between the victor and his
victim, with the cry, " Thou shalt not kill ! " I
do not know whether it is the skill of the artist
or the subject chosen by him which produces
the effect ; but I can never pass this picture
without emotion. Though the artist only imag-
ined that scene, he took it, nevertheless, from
life. Such scenes have occurred, not once, but
a thousand times, until the brute in man was
tamed, and the barbarian had learned, not only
the lesson, " Thou shalt not kill," but the still
greater one, " Love thy neighbor as thyself."

Christianity at the same time was accommo-
dating itself to the pagan world. It did not
ask for more than it could possibly get at a
time. It granted indulgences, provided some of
its lessons were accepted in exchange ; and
thus, step by step, it went further and further,
until it had subdued the world; until it had
civilized Germans, Goths, Celts, Huns, Mon

Mother and Daughter. 59

gols, and all ; until princes would yield to the
frown of a bishop and warriors sheathe or un-
sheathe their swords at the command of the
ecclesiastical head. Every unprejudiced man
must acknowledge it, and I acknowledge it with
pleasure, that Christianity has performed some
remarkable deeds. It has abolished slavery, it
has established monogamy, it has mitigated
the evils of war, and by all means raised the
standard of civilization.

But there is nothing obtained in this world
without compensation. What is won on the
one side is generally lost on the other. Chris-
tianity had stooped down to the pagan world to
save it, it had yielded to its whims ; but in its
embraces it had lost its identity, and had become
paganized in its turn. Step by step, it was
dragged, let me say involuntarily, from its path.
The Messiah was changed into a son of God,
and the son soon unthroned the father. A
mysterious trinity replaced monotheism : super-
stitious idolatry raised again its head. Upon
the pedestals from which the early Church had
thrown the jolly crowd of Greek gods and god-
desses, the later Church erected the images of
their saints. A Saint Martin took the place of
Mars, the god of war ; a Madonna, the place of
a Minerva ; a Magdalene, the place of a Venus.
The churches were again desecrated into won^
der-working institutions : the Christian priest

6o Messianic Expectations.

assumed the splendor of his predecessor, and
dressed in gorgeous style : the bishop of Rome
became the heir of the late Pontifex Maximus.
Reason was banished, and unbridled imagina-
tion was permitted to run riot. Paganism, it
is true, had been Christianized ; but during the
process Christianity had become paganized.
The world would surely have fallen back into
its former barbarism, as the dreary Middle Ages
indicated, if it had not been for Judaism. Yes,
indeed: if it had not been for Judaism ;\nd
this is a fact which only few seem to know.
Though bleeding from many a wound, though
despised and maltreated by her haughty daugh-
ter, Judaism the mother still lived ; and as long
as she lived, she was a living protest against
the frivolous conduct of her daughter. Her
rigor, which had made her lose the command
over a world, had protected her, on the other
hand, from the dangerous embraces of paganism.
She had preserved the purity of her doctrines,
and still clung to reason in preference to blind
belief.

At this juncture, it appears necessary to
me to say a few words about belief, now we
hear so much about believers and unbelievers,
or infidels. Belief is always resorted to to
offset reason ; and a great many maintain that
religion cannot be severed from belief. There
are perhaps many Israelites who do not know

Mother and Daughter. 6 1

it, and therefore will be scared when I tell them
that Judaism is not built upon belief, but that
it stands upon the firm rock of reason. You
will never find in Jewish literature the com-
mand, "Thou shalt believe." This word was
introduced into the religious vocabulary by
Christianity. The mere belief in the Saviour
was to save from eternal damnation. Standing
upon a basis which could not withstand the
pressure of reason, it was to be supported by
beliefs. To believe did not mean to accept a
statement as true because it could reasonably
be expected to be true. No : to believe meant
to accept a statement as true, although reason
revolted against it. Only then the saving
qualities of belief would come into play. There
was, for instance, no merit in the belief in a
God whose existence, though not perceivable
by human senses, still stands to reason ; but the
belief that three are one and one three, a
doctrine against which reason revolts, such a
belief was soul-saving and meritorious. Let me
give you another example. To believe that the
sacred Scriptures were written in the same way
as all other books, which they may surpass in
diction and beauty, by human writers inspired
for their work, or to believe that the soul of
every writer, inventor, or discoverer, stands in
a certain relation to the source from which all
talent and genius spring and our spirits flow,

62 Messianic Expectations,

such a belief, which stands to reason, was of no
merit : it was, and is still, called unbelief. But
to believe that God selected a certain man, and
dictated him, word for word, an oration which
he was to deliver, or a narrative which he was
to write, assuming the responsible editorship
himself, and using the man only as an amanu-
ensis, such a belief, against which reason rea-
sonably rebels, such a belief is still to-day
demanded. The passage in which a Church
Father says, . Credo, quia absurdum est, " I
believe, because it is absurd," was by no means
intended as a sarcasm : it was the only stand-
point of the Church. Whatever is reasonable
needs not to be believed ; it convinces ; and
the great God who has granted us the heavenly
light of reason can not, does not, want us to
exchange it for the dim lamp of blind belief.
A religion which cannot stand the test of
reason cannot endure forever : belief is a weak
prop only, which sooner or later must break.

Christianity, because it could never prove its
premises, was forced to cling to belief. Juda-
ism, on the contrary, was not and is not under
such a pressure. It accepts facts which have
occurred in the past as true, as long as they are
not unreasonable or proven to be unhistorical
by new developments ; and no merit is claimed
for it nor any reward expected for it. This
grants us full liberty of conscience.

Mother and Daughter. 63

At every critical period in the development
of the Christian Church, Judaism, the mother,
raised her voice of warning, and this voice was
not to be silenced. Neither the sword of per-
secution nor the pyre and torture of the inquisi-
tion, not even ridicule,, could chase away the
maternal ghost, which would step between the
daughter and her seducer at the critical mo-
ment. And thus the tide turned. Slowly but
surely the daughter retraced her steps. Protes-
tantism was the first step toward home. Juda-
ism had so long protested against image-worship
that the very best Christians began to listen,
then to think : finally to join in the protest.
Christian scholars secretly visited in disguise
the learned men of Judah. They visited their
miserable abodes, to be introduced by them to
the mysterids of the Talmud, and to read with
them the Bible in the original. Here they
drank in full draughts from the waters of
life; and when Luther nailed his theses to
the church door of Wittenberg, his hammer
sounded the death-knell to idolatry. Four
hundred years of retracing her steps are not
a long time in comparison with the fifteen hun-
dred years during which the Church was built ;
and considerable work has been done already
We have arrived at that stage where the dogma
of a trinity has been abandoned, and a Unitarian
platform is erected in its place. Jesus of Naza-

64 Messianic Expectations.

reth, five hundred years ago the principal and
foremost feature of the trinity, is now to our
enlightened Unitarian friends not more than
the ideal of a man ; and I doubt whether the
remaining eleven hundred will be consumed be-
fore he will not be more and not less than the
carpenter's son. Hereditary sin, atonement
through Christ, heaven and purgatory, eternal
bliss and eternal damnation, all these supersti-
tious doctrines have already fallen ; and the sun
of reason breaks through the clouds, and sheds
its bright rays to-day over a world happier and
better than ever before.

Has Judaism remained unchanged during all
these centuries 1 In its principles, yes ; in its
forms, no. The principle that there is but one
God, and none besides him, and the ten com-
mandments, which are the neceSsary conse-
quence of it, have remained unchanged, and
will remain unchanged forever, until the whole
human race shall have adopted them. They
have already adopted them in theory, but not
yet in practice. But in regard to forms we
have changed. Thank God, we have advanced.
The jew of to-day is no longer the Jew of nine-
teen hundred years ago. We are no mummies :
we are alive and wide awake to the demands of
our time. We have learned a good many
things : and I praise God for it that we have
also forgotten a good many. The advancing

Mother ana Daughter. 65

Israelite and the advanced, or, as I shall name
him more properly, the returning. Christian
stand to-day almost upon the same level.
There are only two slight difficulties to be
overcome ; one on the part of our Unitarian
friends, the other on both sides. The first is
that our friends must give up the ideal embel-
lishments with which Jesus of Nazareth is glo-
rified, and reduce him to that place which he
may have really filled. I know it : it will take
some time before they shall overcome this diffi-
culty ; for it is not so easy as you may think
to give up ideals to which you have become
attached from your earliest childhood ; nor
must we forget that then they would lose their
claim to the Christian name, so highly cher-
ished by them. The other difficulty to be over-
come by both sides is race prejudice. With
the spread of intelligence, with a better under-
standing between both races, and with good
will on both sides, I am almost certain that in
course of time this difficulty too will be removed.
Mother and daughter, who even then will
touch one another with the tips of their fingers
only, will feel the magnetic current of love pass
through their bodies. Nearer and nearer they
will be drawn to each other, until at last, after
a thousand years, they will be reunited in one
loving embrace.

A GENUINE MESSIAH.

EN and events are seldom v/e;ghed by
us in the scales of justice. It is the
successful who generally carries off the
admiration and appreciation of the world ; and
the popular adage says therefore correctly,
Nothing succeeds like success. Success, how-
ever, is a product composed of two factors ; the
one of which is our own ability and ambition,
the other an indescribable something, commonly
called luck. The one is within ourselves, the
other outside of us. We have full control over
the first one, but no command whatsoever over
the second. Nor are these two factors equal in
value. The product success is obtained in some
cases by the multiplication of great ability with
a small quantity of luck ; in others, by the mul-
tiplication of little ability with a great amount
of luck. No success whatsoever can be reached
if one of these two factors is lacking. The most
talented, the most enthusiastic, will fail in his
enterprise if luck does not favor him ; and the
choicest luck cannot tower up to the goal of
66

A Genuine Messiah. 67

success if not supported by some intelli-
gence.

But, sad as the fact is, mankind never goes
behind the returns. It never takes the time to
examine the factors : it looks at the product
only. If a man is successful, it bows before him
in admiration : if his undertaking has been
unsuccessful, it turns from him with disgust ; at
best with pity. A people arising to break the
fetters which either a foreign nation or the party
in power has tied around its limbs has always
been a grand sight ; and the attention of the
world has always been directed toward the place
where such an uprising has'occurred ; but it has
always been the final success which has influ-
enced the verdict. Whenever a nation has suc-
ceeded in liberating itself, the preceding struggle
has been called a revolution : if it has failed in
its enterprise, it has been called a rebellion. In
the first case, the national leaders have been
worshipped as heroes, and their praises have
been sung by the poets of their time ; in the
other, they have been stigmatized as traitors, as
ringleaders, as rebels ; and though they may
have sealed their love for their country with
their blood, either gloriously on the battle-field,
or ignominiously upon the scaffold, not a word
has been said in their favor : not a pen has been
stirred to transmit their name to posterity. At
best, they have been defended; at best, some

68 Messianic Expectations.

friendly hand has attempted to wipe away the
stains with which their misfortune or ill luck
has bespattered them.

My argument will appear with greater distinct-
ness by the following comparison. Supposing;
the United States of America had been unsuc-
cessful in their struggle against Great Britain,
do you think we should look at the event as we
do now .' You may rest assured that the glorious
time of a hundred years ago would be branded
to-day as a time of rebellion ; that the children at
school would be instructed to detest the rebels,
Washington and Franklin, and to glory in the
patriotism of Arnold. They would not be told
to memorize Longfellow's beautiful poem of the
midnight ride of Paul Revere ; and " God save
the Queen " would fill the place of the " Star-
spangled Banner " in the singing-books of our
schools. How many of us would take the trouble
to examine the motives, the heroism, and the
enthusiasm, of the noble men of '^6} Few;
for we all should silently acquiesce in ihe.verdict
of the world ; or, as you may call it, in the ver-
dict of history, v/hich, after all, would have been
influenced, not by the merit, but by the success
of the cause.

Will humanity ever outgrow such injustice .■•
I have good reason to believe that the historians
of the future will adopt a more just measurement
of men and events ; that they will overhaul the

A Genuine Messiah. 6g

whole building which history so far has erected,
and that they will mete out justice unbiassed by
the success with which an event had been ac-
companied ; and I should advise you, my friends,
whenever you go into historical research, to
leave a wide margin in favor of the unsuccessful
party.

I shall now acquaint you with such a party,
and with a man who, if he had been successful,
would have filled the world with his renown.
He possessed the one factor of success, genius,
talent, enthusiasm ; but, alas, he lacked the
other. Luck went against him. I shall conjure
up before you the spirit of a man whom nobody
to-day seems to know, but who, nevertheless,
-at his time had made a Roman emperor tremble
upon his throne ; whose very name spread
terror upon Roman soil similar to that which,
hundreds of years before, the name of Brennus
and Hannibal had caused. Would that I could
show you the last Jewish warrior in his full
glory ! Would that I could sing in loud strains
the praise of the last Jewish hero, who, if ever
a man has deserved the title Messiah, was
worthy of it ! If ever Messianic expectations
have been realized, they were realized in Bar
Kochba. He was, barring anointment, a Mes-
siah who tallied, every inch of him, with the
hopes which bis nation harbored concerning such
a man.

70 Messianic Expectations.

The Jewish nation has been and is still blamed
for rejecting Jesus of Nazareth as a Messiah.
They have been called a stubborn people, who
would always maltreat its benefactors and best
friends. False, thrice false! The Jews were,
as they are still, wide-awake, and knew well how
to distinguish a chimera from a reality. While
they remained indifferent to idealistic dreamers,
as Jesus and Theudas may have been, they arose
as one man when the person appeared who had
all the qualifications of a Messiah. They placed
at Bar Kochba's disposal an army of not less
than half a million of well-equipped soldiers.
They heeded strictly his orders. There was
not the least discord in their ranks ; and during
five years more than two millions of Jews sacri-
ficed their lives for him and his cause. Does
such devotion indicate blindness or stub'born-
ness } Alas ! Bar Kochba was not successful :
his cause did not triumph. The hero was there-
fore degraded to a rebel, and the last glorious
struggle of our nation was stigmatized as a
rebellion.

Jerusalem had fallen in the year 70 of the
new era, and Judea had been made a Roman
province. Years of misery followed, and the
hope that finally a Messiah must appear to re-
"Store their former independence grew stronger
every day. Even the early Christians believed
that the time was near when their Messiah would

A Genuine Messiah. 71

return. Sixty years had passed since ; and as
the first exile had lasted only seventy years, the
conclusion was near at hand that again, after
seventy years, a restoration would take place.

An excellent proof that the hope in the advent
of a Messiah was rooted in political and not in
religious ground, that the Jews did not expect a
supernatural Messiah, but simply a man who
would be their leader in the struggle for liberty,
is that they prepared for the emergency. They
were practical enough to observe that arms, am-
munition, drilled men, and especially money,
must be prepared and in readiness, so that the
Messiah should have the sinews of war at his
command. They did by no means believe that
he was to work wonders, and do the fighting all
by himself. They expected in him a leader, and
nothing else.

The acknowledged head of the Jewish com-
munity at that time was Rabbi Akiba, whom I
cannot help mentioning, as he played a princi-
pal part in the tragedy of the Bar Kochbean
war. His history is wonderful, and reads like
a novel. Up to his fortieth year, he is said to
have been ignoraht of letters, unable to read
or write. His occupation was that of a porter
in the house of Calba Sabua, the Vanderbilt of
his time. At this advanced age, he fell in love
with Rachel, his master's daughter. His affec-
tion was returned; but as Rachel well knew

72 Messianic Expectations.

that her proud father would never consent to
her marriage with a porter, and elopements
were not fashionable at that time, she advised
him, strange to say, to study lawi Akiba
heeded her advice, and began at the bottom
of the ladder. He entered a primary school.
During the many years of his studies, Rachel
is said to have faithfully preserved her love for
him, although her father, hearing of it, disowned
her. She is said to have lived in such misery
that once she was compelled to cut off and sell
the braids of her hair in order to obtain money
for food. Finally Akiba, who had risen step
by step, gained renown ; and, when be returned
to Jerusalem accompanied by a host of disciples,
and the acknowledged head of the Jewish com-
munity, Calba Sabua laid aside his prejudice,
and gave him his daughter for a wife ; bestow-
ing upon her a rich dowry, so thajt from that
time she could live in abundance.

Do you suppose that a man of the stamp of
Rabbi Akiba., who not only believed in the
divine origin of the Bible, but even maintained
that every letter in it had a secret meaning : do
you suppose for a moment that such a man did
not understand the meaning of the prophets
in regard to a Messiah, at .least as well as Chris-
tian clergymen of to-day, who do not tire of
quoting .the OJd Testament in support of their
thepjcie^ .' If Akiba qpuld have made one pas-

A Gmuifig Messiah. 73

sage, yea, even one word, of Scripture tally
with the appearance of Jesus as a Messiah, he
would surely and willingly have accepted him.
Or do you suppose that a man of such an iron
will and as practical as Rabbi Akiba must have
been, would have accepted the very first adven-
turer as a Messiah, that he would have sacrificed
his influence, his time, his money, his life, for
an impostor? This very Akiba, a second
Samuel, pointed out Bar Kochba, and intro-
duced him to the people as the long-expected
Messiah. This very Akiba travelled for years,
visiting all Jewish colonies, levying money and
men for the Messiah. From one of his trips he
is said to have returned with thirty thousand
disciples, probably young men whom he had
enlisted for his cause.

Bar Kochba, or Bar Kosiba, which name he
derived from the small town of Kosiba or Kesib,
was the embodiment of all the qualities expected
to appertain to a Messiah. He was of powerful,
herculean build ; tall, muscular, strong. He
was the model of a soldier. He would sleep on
the bare ground, and share the coarse food of
his soldiers. In battle he would be seen at the
most dangerous points, whirling his battle-axe
with undaunted courage. He was a skilful
leader, who outgeneralled the most experienced
soldiers of Rome. Deep as was his hatred for
Rome was his love for his country. He was

74 Messianic Expectations.

modest and willing to listen ; and for all this
his followers worshipped him. How he had
passed his youth, where he had obtained his
military knowledge, nobody knew. There he
was at the time when all was prepared, and
people were only waiting for the leader ; and
the impression which he must have made upon
the people was such that, without examining his
past record, all, the rich and the poor, the
learned and the simple, flocked to his banner,
and obeyed implicitly his commands. Within
the space of one year he stormed fifty fortified
places, and freed nine hundred and eighty-five
towns held by the Romans ; and when the year
133 dawned, not a single Roman was to be seen
in Palestine.

At first the Emperor Hadrian, occupied with
other schemes, gave little attention to the re-
volt ; but when the most renowned legions had
lost their prestige on Jewish battle-grounds ;
when his best generals returned defeated by a
foe unknown before ; when the Orient, observing
that the Romans were not invincible, began to
awaken from its slumber and to rally around the
victorious Messiah, he tremblingly acknowleged
the great danger that threatened the empire,
and took immediate steps to suppress the rebel-
lion at whatever cost. He ordered his best
general, Julius Severus, the Moltke of his time,
from England, where his presence had been

A Genuine Messiah. 75

needed, to proceed at once to Palestine. He
gave him a large army of picked soldiers, and
all the supplies he wanted. Bar Kochba, on his
part, remained not idle during the two years
which Severus needed to organize his forces for
the task. He made an attempt to rebuild Jeru-
salem and the temple. He made use of the pre-
rogatives of a king, and issued coins stamped
with the inscription " Cheruth Jerusalem,"
Freedom of Jerusalem, a few of which are still
to be seen. He fortified a number of cities,
and was so confident of his final success that he
is reported to have uttered the almost blasphe-
mous words, " O God, if it does not please thee
to assist us, withhold, at least, thy aid from our
enemies ; we shall then stand our own, and be
victorious." Severus did not dare to meet his
adversary in open battle. He adopted the same
stratagem which Fabius the Cunctator had-
used against Hannibal. He refused to fight a
battle ; but he drew a large circle of fortified
camps around the whole of Palestine, from
which he sent his cavalry to tire the. enemy in
small encounters, and to cut off supplies. Bar
Kochba had no horsemen to check the ravages
of the Romans ; and, in spite of all heroism, was
not able to break the circle which Severus now
contracted inch by inch. One Jewish fort after
the other had to surrender for want of supplies ;
and soon the iron band closed around the for-

76 Mes'sianii Expectations.

tress of Betar, into which Bar Kochba had been
forced with the flower of his army. Betar must
have been a city of the size of Metz ; and the
siege and defence of that city must have been a
wonder of military skill. The two greatest gen-
erals of their time exhausted their genius irt
moves and counter-moves. Every inch of land
was contested with bravery and skill, such as
had seldom been witnessed before.

The Roman general finally despaiired of cap-
turing the city. Epidemics had decimated his
legions ; and though he had fought for a whole
year before Betar, he had not gained the least
advantage over his foe. He was about to raise
the siege, when two Samaritan traitors showed
him a secreted aqueduct which supplied the city
with water. He shut the water off at once ;
but even the most excruciating pains of thirst
Could not make the noble garrison of Betar
surrender the place. Not before the Romans
had found a way into the city, by enlarging the
same aqueduct, was the fate of Betar and that
of Judea sealed. On a Sabbath day, Severus
stormed the city. Bar Kochba, a second Leoni-
das, fell, sword in hand, covered with honorable
wounds. He would not survive the final doom
of his nation. A legend says that, when a man
brought the head of Bar Kochba to Severus,
and claimed that he had slain him, the latter
said, " If this man has not been killed by God

A Genuine J^essiak. 7^

himself, the power of a mortal could never have
harmed him." Another legend reports that
his body, when found, was encircled by a snake,
which would allow nobody to harm it.

Thus died Bar Kochba, a hero and a patriot.
He would have sacrificed ten more lives upon
the altar of his country, if such had been possi-
ble. Although he has been almost forgotten ;
although the masses have never heard of him ;
although our Christian friends are not aware of
it, that the Jews once accepted a Messiah, and
cheei^ully spilled their blood in his service, be-
cause he was the type of that Messiah of which
they had dreamed ; although no poet has sung
his praise, Bar Kochba is no myth. His history
is written in the heart-blood of the nation upon
the soil of Palestine. The Talinud contains
numerous passages referring to him. Even the
Gospels allude to him ; * anothei- indication of

* Mark xiii. 5-13. Take heed lest any man deceive you. For
some shall come under my name, saying, I am the Messiah,
and shall deceive many. And when ye shall hear of wars and
rumors of war, be ye not troubled : for such things need be.
For nations shall rise against nations, and kingdom against
kingdom. . . . But take heed to yourselves, for they shall dft»
liver you up to councils and in the synagogues ye shall be
beaten. . . . Now the brother shall betray the brother, etc.

The some (ris) who was to assume the role of a Messiah, and
of whom the faithful were to beware, is Bar Kochba, whose
patriotism has not been without influence upon the Jew-Chris-
tians. The writer of Mark, who had witnessed the Bar
Kochba revolt, puts the graphic picture of it into the mouth

78 Messianic Expectations.

the time in which they were written. A Greek
historian, Dion Cassius, speaks with reverence
of him. There are still to be seen the coins
which he had caused to be minted ; and even
the minutes kept by the Roman Senate bore
evidence to his greatness. When Severus re-
ported to the august body his final victory over
the enemy, he omitted the customary introduc-
tion, "I and the army are well." Indeed,
neither he nor his army was well. His victory
had the semblance of a defeat. Neither did
the Senate grant him the honor of a triumph.

Here we have a Messiah recognized by the
people, recognized by its representative, Rabbi
Akiba ; a Messiah who laid down his life upon
the altar of his country ; but did Judaism make
a God of him .' Did it allow him to change
one of its laws .-• Did he or his followers
ever attempt to change a law, on the ground

of Jesus as a prophecy. - The wars and rumors of war and the
words Hations shall rise against nations are not less descrip-
tive of the Bar Kochba revolt and remind us of the occurrence
of that time which Dion Cassius describes as follows : itai niariv,
Gff (UtiVf KLvoVfthm tm Tof)r(ji r^j oiKovjjtivris, The passage, for they
shall deliver you up to councils (mx/ijiKi), and in the synagogues
ye shall be beaten, agrees with the statements of -Justin and
Eusebius, who say that Bar Kochba had punished the Jew-
Christians because they would not fight against the Romans.
Eusebius, in his history of the 17th year of Hadrian, says :
Cochebas plurimos Christianos diversis suppliciis affecit, eo
quo noluissent proficisci cum illo pugnatum contra Romanes.
Compare Gratz, History of the Jews, vol. i v., note 1 5.

A Genuine Messiah. 79

of his Messianic authority ? Has ever a cult or
a ceremony been instituted to commemorate
his life and death ? Though the Jewish nation
has mourned him with bitter tears, his ill luck
has made him share the fate of all unsuccessful !
It is due to modern research that the marvellous
career of Bar Kochba is brought to acknowl-
edgment, and his heroic patriotism duly appre-
ciated.

Although Rabbi Akiba had introduced Bar
Kochba as the expected Messiah, he never at-
tempted to make a tool of him. The confidence
of the people rested in the qualities of the Mes-
siah, and the recommendation of a man who
had been the interpreter of the law for so many
years only strengthened it.- Rabbi Akiba sur-
vived the fall of Betar. It is said that he
miraculously escaped before its capture, and
that for some time he was the eye-witness of
the sufferings through which his nation had to
pass.

It has been claimed that the misery which
had followed the Jewish nation was a punish-
ment of God for their rejecting Jesus of Naza-
reth as a Messiah, and that it is a proof that
they must have crucified him. How can such a
claim be reconciled with the justice of God .'
How could our ancestors have acknowledged an
unknown man, whose name was afterward used
to change, if not to abolish, the law ? Did they

86 MiiSimii ExpietMisns.

hot Show their firm belief When the man ap-
peared who tallied with their expectations of a
Messiah ? Had they not all cause to believe
in the Messiahship of Bar Kochba, better cause
thaft they had to believe in that of the Naza-
fene ? Had Bar Kochba not led the life of a
conscientious Jew ? Had he ever attempted to
lead them from their inherited religion ? Had_
he not been successful in the first years of the
revolt ? And as he showed all the qualities of
a true Messiah, could they help believing in
him ? Was their devotion to him and his
cause of no merit in the eyes of God ? Was
their heroism deserving of the cruel punish-
ment which followed ? Was it not rather de-
serving of reward ? The* argument that the
Jews must have Crucified Jesus because they
have been persecuted since is simply absurd.
Turn it around, and you will come nearer to
the truth. Our history would have run quite
smoothly if ignorance had not considered it an
act of piety to make it fit with some alleged
predictions ; if our oppressors and persecutors
had not considered it a high distinction to
serve as the instruments of punishment.

But let me return to Rabbi Akiba. He was
finally imprisoned on the charge that he had
been an instigator of the revolt, and he suffered
martyrdom from the hands of the Romans.^
The agonies of Jes'Us of Nazareth, if the narra-

A Genuine Messiah. 8i

tive of the Gospels is admitted, are less than
the sufferings of Rabbi Akiba, who was flayed
alive. But in the hour of death, he did not
despairingly exclaim, " My God, why hast thou
forsaken me ? " He died with the words on his
lips, " Hear, O Israel : the Lord our God is one
God."

Israel has never forgotten its noble heroes
nor its martyrs. It has paid them their tribute
of tears, and mourns them still : but it never
made saints of them : it never worshipped
them : it never preserved their relics and
worked miracles with them ; and this is the
cause why the name of Bar Kochba has not
become as familiar a household word as has
the name of many another man of antiquity,
who was far inferior to him in genius and
patriotism.

The revolt of Bar Kochba was the last great
military enterprise of our nation. After it, it
ceased to be a political body; and its future
history is that of a religious sect. We do not
claim to-day to be a nation. The enlightened
Israelite-of to-day does not feel in the least cha-
grined that he has no country of his own or a
king to rule over him. We are sincere and
patriotic citizens of the country in which we
live. We are good Germans in Germany, good
Frenchmen in France, law-abiding Englishmen
in England ; and in this our glorious republic,

82 Messianic Expectations.

which better than any other country in the
world protects our liberties and our rights, we
are true and faithful Americans, ready to prove
it with our blood, if an emergency for such a
proof should arise. We wish for no other coun-
try and for no other form of government ; and
all our efforts are directed toward the one great
aim cherished by all true Americans, without
distinction of race, color, or creed ; the aim to
make our beloved country respected and hon-
ored all over the world.

VI.

THE SPANISH INQUISITION.

/^ THOUSAND years are in the eyes of
^J^ God as one day, sings the Psalmist ;
but in the eye of man, a millennium is
quite a long time. If, therefore, I should pass
over such a period in my research in silence, if
I should take one great stride from the third to
the thirteenth century without alluding to
those centuries with at least a few words, I
should be unjust to my task and at the same
time lack a connecting link.

After the defeat of Bar Kochba, Israel, as I
explained in my last lecture, ceased to be a
nation, and became a religious sect. With this
change, Messianic expectations lost their origi-
nally political character and assumed a philo-
sophical form. Had it not been for the young
Christian church, all Messianic Expectations
would in all probability have then died out.
The more, however, the church insisted upon
the dogma that in Jesus the Messiah had ap-
peared ; the more it busied itself in digging out
passages of the prophets which were to prove
83

84 Messianic Expectations.

it ; the more it interpreted and interpolated the
Scripture to suit its purpose, the more our ances-
tors emphasized the doctrine that a Messiah
was to come. Nor must we forget that the
early church was actually for almost three hun-
dred years expecting the return of their Messiah,
and that thus in a natural way a similar notion
was strengthened amongst the Jews. When
finally Christ did not re-appear, the church
changed its front. The Messiah being apparently
unwilling to return to this world, his adherents
went to him. Heaven with all its joys and a
purgaitory with all its infernal modes of torture
were created. The Malchuth Shamajim, "the
kingdom of heaven," originally denoting an era
of universal happiness upon earth, was placed
beyond the clouds, beyond the reach of the
sceptic ; and the wings of imagination, thus
freed from the fear of the chpping shears of
reason, grew and spread to an extent unknown
before. Judaism knew originally neither of a
heaven nor of a purgatory. Its laws were made
to deal with "one world at a time" ; and though
immortality was not and is not denied by it,
it shrank and still shrinks from the material-
ization or the description of a future life.
Though it afterward became somewhat infected
with these doctrines, its healthy condition did
not allow the disease to spread ; and intelli-
gent Israelites have done away -with such no-

The Spanish Inquisition. 85

tions as they have with Messianic expecta-
tions.

The more Christianity embellished, frescoed,
and decorated its heaven around the God-Mes-
siah in the centre, the more clung Judaism
to the belief in the advent of a secular Messiah,
who should restore their nationality, take away
the very opprobrium of their existence, and
make them respected again in the world. But
this was a mere doctrinal hope, if I am per-
mitted to call it so. Like morphine, it soothed
the pain, though it did not heal the wound.
All kinds of chimerical ideas therefore gathered
around it, as for instance, the resurrection of
the dead, the stern judgment which the Messiah
would hold over the world, and so on. It is a
sweet consolation for the oppressed to hope
against hope. Thus it afforded some consola-
tion to our ancestors, when they were driven
from country to country and were deprived of
their human rights, to murmur : Wait till
our Messiah comes ; then we shall compare
accounts.

During these thousand years, here and there
and now and then an adventurer would appear,
who would assume the r61e of a Messiah, gain
some renown in small circles, and then disappear.
In greater favor, however, were speculations as
to the time when the Messiah was to come ;
and all kinds of reckoning were indulged in.

86 Messianic Expectations.

Some would count the letters of a Scriptural
passage, others would endeavor to find that
time by astrological calculations. Maunonides,
who at his time was a rationalist of the first
rank, the first philosopher after Aristotle who
re-admitted reason into religious speculations :
Maimonides, who at his time was as ferociously
attacked by the Orthodox wing of Judaism as
to-day he is enthusiastically quoted by the same
party as its champion : Maimonides, to whom we
owe the thirteen articles of creed, among which
we find a plank inserted in favor of Messianic
expectations, — this very Maimonides warns
against giving such aspirations a practical turn.
In a circular letter to the congregations of Yemen
he proves to them that whenever these hopes
had ceased to be hopes and attempts had been
made to realize them, such attempts had always
been followed by evil consequences.

As I do not intend to give the history of the
Jews during this millennium, I shall with these
few remarks dismiss that subject and turn to
the topic which I have chosen for discussion,
namely, "The Spanish Inquisition"; without
which my next lecture, on Solomon Molcho,
would be incomprehensible.

The Inquisition in general, and the Spanish
Inquisition in particular, is, as all fair-minded
people concede, an indelible stain on the history
of the Christian church. No matter how many

The Spanish Inquisition. 87

noble principles the church ever championed,
the terror of the Inquisition forces them all
into the background ; no matter how radiant the
halo is which encircles the brow of its saints,
the names of Innocent III., Fernando Martinez,
Torquemada, Ferdinand and Isabella, hang over
it as a darkling cloud. The Inquisition has left
its autograph upon the pages of history in such
traces of blood that all the waters of the ocean
cannot wash them away. For two hundred
years and more hecatombs of human beings
were sacrificed almost daily "ad majorem Dei
gloriam," unto the greater glory of God. For
two hundred years and more the smoke which
arose from innumerable pyres upon which
human beings were burned alive darkened the
sky. For two hundred years and more human
beings were systematically tortured and killed,
for no other reason but that they differed in
opinion with their oppressors. We can hardly
understand to-day how humanity could have for-
gotten itself to such a degree ; it is well nigh
impossible for us to understand to-day how the
church, which had proclaimed itself the cham-
pion of brotherly love, which had promised to
extend love even to an enemy, could have so
utterly failed in the execution of its principles,
just when it stood at the zenith of its power. It
is, therefore, worth while to look into the causes
from which this phenomenal institution sprang.

88 Messianic Expectations.

It may appear quite a paradox to say that
" Love " was the first cause for all the cruelties
of the Inquisition. But let us be just and fair,
no matter how much we have been the suffer-
ers. Love was its first cause. During the
■ twelve hundred years of its existence Christian-
ity had developed in a manner which its inno-
cent founders had never anticipated. Not to
speak of the establishment of the trinitarian
doctrine, of the changing of the Sabbath day
from the seventh to the first day of the week,
or of the introduction of saint and relic worship,
the dogma of eternal happiness and eternal
punishment, or, to call it by its right name,
the dogma of heaven and hell, had been worked
out in the most fantastic manner. The tortures
and flames of purgatory were depicted in such
terrifying colors that the stoutest heart trem-
bled at the mere thought of them. The church
maintained that man was conceived in sin ; that
therefore he was sentenced even before his
birth to an everlasting abode in these infernal
spheres ; that the belief in the Saviour alone
could snatch him from purgatory ; and that the
few drops of the baptismal water alone had the
secret power to save him from the eternal fire.
The rational thinker of to-day wonders that
nobody at that time ever questioned how eter-
nal punishment could be reconciled with the
justice of God; but, it is a fact, nobody was

The Spmdsh Inquisition. 89

ever struck by that idea, and for a long time
even the absurd question was under earnest
discussion, whether the souls of still-born chil-
dren were to burn eternally or not. How firmly
rooted these queer notions were, is to be seen
from the fact that even Protestantism could not
entirely part with them ; that Luther threw his
inkstand at the devil who appeared to him ; and
that even in this country witches were tried,
sentenced, and burned. Even to-day only a
small minority of our Christian friends, the Uni-
versalists and Unitarians alone, have practically
denounced the dogma of eternal punishment.

These premises granted, it was indeed an act
of " Love " to save a person from eternal damna-
tion, even against his will, and by means no
matter how disagreeable to him. The argu-
ment of the church basing itself upon this
hypothesis was as sound as the hypothesis was
absurd. The church would argue thus: The
surgeon will inflict upon his patient momentary
pain in order to save him from death ; thus it
is better to bring the momentary pain of the
torture or the pyre upon a heretic than to allow
him to pass into the eternal flames of purgatory,
from which God himself could not then save
him; or, as you will "use the whip to drive
cattle from a burning stable in spite of their
struggles, thus the blind heretic, who does not
^see the flames which are awaiting him for all

90 Messianic Expectations.

eternity, must be driven by force into the folds
of the soul-saving church.

This motive of love may have actuated some
of the inquisitors ; and, in order to be fair, let
us say many of them ; for this motive is the
only excuse for the horrifying cruelties com-
mitted. But so much is sure ; it did not actuate
all of them.

The second motive was " Fear." The church,
which had built its structure upon imaginary
props became timid when reason began to ex-
amine the foundation. So far it had dealt with
barbarians, who were unaccustomed to reason.
The Marionite monks had clubbed Greek phi-
losophers to death ; but they could not as easily
kill reason. The spirit of scepticism with
which an all-wise Creator has endowed man,
the most beloved of all his creatures, began to
move ; and these motions were felt : they shook
the foundation of the church. The Inquisitioa
all over Christendom and also in Spain was not
directed against Jews as such : it was directed
against Christian heretics and against that ele-
ment which, formerly Jewish, had turned Chris-
tian from compulsion and had now become the
most troublesome and dangerous enemy from
within. The church attempted to stamp out
all rationalism. There was to be only one head
and one will all over the world ; namely, that of
an infallible Pope, who could not err, and to

The Spanish Inquisition. 91

whose decrees all humanity was to submit with-
out giving them a single thought. But the
spectre of Protestantism already haunted the
chambers of the Vatican, and the Inquisition
was resorted to in self-defence.

The Inquisition in Spain had still a third
cause. In the beginning of the eighth century,
the Mohammedans had entered Spain from the
south and conquered it. The Christians had
been driven to the northern part of the penin-
sula or to P'rance, whence they kept up a con-
stant warfare with the intruders. Though the
Mohammedans had firmly established them-
selves on Spanish soil, and had civilized that
country to a high degree, their days were num-
bered. Step by step the warlike Christians
regained the lost ground. One castle after an-
other, one city after another, was reconquered.
The Jews, who had been tolerably treated by
the Mohammedans, had arisen to a high degree
of culture, and formed a large part of the popu-
lation. They owned real estate and factories,
carried on a large commerce, and rivalled even
in chivalry their fellow-citizens, of both Chris-
tian and Mohammedan descent. While, how-
ever, the Moors could withdraw from before the
pressure of the Christians to Africa or Asia,
where their co-religionists were in power, the
Jews had to remain ; and their high intelli-
gence, and still more their wealth, were looked

92 Messianic Expectations.

at with envy by the poor and rude victors.
They wanted their money, their houses, their
fields, their factories.

The father of the Inquisition was Pope
Innocent III., who ascended the papal see in
119S. He suggested a court before which all
heretics, that is, all who differed from him,
should be tried. But though at the same time
he persecuted the Jews, who had become a
living protest against the paganization of Chris-
tianity, the Inquisition as such had not yet
occasion to deal with them. Its activity against
Jews dates from a later period.

Ferdinand Martinez, a fanatic monk, was
travelling through Spain on a missionary tour,
preaching against all infidels in general, and
against the Jews in particular. On the isth of
March, 1391, he preached in the market-place
of Seville and inflamed the mob to a riot against
the Jews, which, though stopped for the time
by the government, was soon repeated. The
Jewish quarters were stormed on the 6th of
June in the same year; almost thirty thousand
Jews were killed, and their dwellings sacked.
Three thousand families saved their lives by
submitting to baptism. The example of Seville
infected all Spain ; and riots occurred in every
city, all with the same result. A part of the
Jews were slaughtered ; a few, after having
escaped with their bare lives, eked out a miser-

The Spanish Inquisition. 93

able subsistence in obscure villages : the larger
part turned Christians. Who could blame
them if under such conditions they succumbed
to the pressure of temptation ? On the one
side, death or the misery of the outcast for
themselves and their children, on the other a
life of respectability and affluence. All that
was required of them was to suffer the rite of
baptism, refrain from Jewish ceremonies and
customs, and adopt those of the church in their
stead. ' The Moors, who were not so scrupulous
in regard to apostasy, gave an inviting example,
and before long all Spain was full of Jewish
and Moorish converts. A few more years
and these converts had gained back by their
intelligence, industry, temperance, and en-
terprise, what the mob had taken away from
them. They soon formed the aristocracy,
filled the highest offices in state and church ;
in a word, they soon became the rulers of
the country.

It may be easy to accustom one's self to the
thoughtless performance of some meaningless
ceremony ; but it is not as easy for one accus-
tomed to reason to submit conscientiously to a
creed inferior to his former one. A man may
deceive others ; but he can never belie himself.
There was never a Jew at that time converted
to Christianity who conscientiously believed in
the doctrines of his adopted religion. They

94 Messianic Expectations.

were all hypocrites, who had changed their creed
for earthly considerations merely. They could
not have been conscientious ; for, although
many may differ from me, I still maintain that
Judaism is built upon reason, and not upon
belief. The Jew is a born reasoner ; he is a
rationalist by his very nature ; he is scepticism
personified. The Spanish converts soon proved
to be the most dangerous acquisition the church
could ever have made. Although they went
to mass and practised all the rites which their
new religion prescribed, they did not believe
in its doctrines : they ridiculed them as absurd ;
and infected with their sarcastic doubts their
credulous friends. A riot once arose against
them from an insignificant cause, which never-
theless illustrates vividly the condition of affairs
at that time. There had been a drought in a
Spanish district, and a famine was feared. A
pious fraud produced some relic in which a
light could be observed ; and processions were
formed to that shrine in order to ask the
mediation of the saints for rain. While the
credulous and superstitious populace bowed
reverently before the miraculous relic, a pseudo-
Christian sarcastically remarked that water
would be better appreciated than the fire which
the relic contained. He and his friends were
mobbed.

The pseudo-Christians furthermore found a

, The Spanish Inquisition. 95

certain charm in secretly observing the rites of
Judaism. Secrecy always spreads a charm over
the most insignificant matter. The boy who at
his thirteenth year was secretly taken by his
father to some obscure cave,, and after giving
several passwords was introduced to a congre-
gation of pseudo-Christians and had to take a
fearful oath that he would never betray them,
must have been highly impressed with the
unwonted ceremonies which he was invited to
perform. The fringed cloak, the phylacteries
which were given to him as a sacred trust,
appeared to him the very essentials of Judaism,
with which he now became much more infat-
uated than if all this secrecy had not been
necessary. Associating with one another by
means of their secret meetings, they naturally
intermarried amongst themselves ; and thus
not even their race was obliterated. Their
high intellectual abilities and the ambition
which has always been a qualityof the Jewish
character installed them in the highest offices
even of the church. There were bishops
amongst them who would read mass in the
morning, and, after having withdrawn to their
closet, wrap themselves in their Tallis and
most fervently read the Sh'ma. On account of
their position and their wealth they were
distrusted and hated by the population. ThSy
were called Marranos.

96 Messianic Expeettttians.

The mystery which surrounds this word has
not yet been solved ; but its general meaning
was the accursed ones. With their former
brethren the Marranos lived in some sort of
friendship. They supplied them with teachers,
and kept them in constant communion with
Judaism.

The Inquisition found therefore in Spain a
larger field than anywhere else. In other
countries only now and then an incautious
heretic would venture to raise his voice ; but
in Spain half the population were heretics.
And heresy was to be stamped out at what-
ever cost. Whosoever was suspected of being a
secret adherent of Judaism was brought before
the inquisitory tribunal. The torture made the
victim not only confess his own guilt but
also the names of his co-religionists. Who-
soever was convicted of heresy was robbed of
his possessions, part of which went into the
King's treasury, another into the coffers of the
Inquisition, a third to the spy and traitor. If
a victim of the Inquisition denied his guilt, he
was tortured to death : if he confessed, he was
delivered to the flames.

During the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella,
the royal pair under whose government and for
whose benefit America was discovered, an edict,
was issued which exiled every non-Christian,

The Spanish Inquisition. 97

be he Jew or Mohammedan, from Spanish soil.
Torquemada, the head of the Inquisition, is
said to have wrung the consent to this edict
from the timid king. An anecdote, for the
truth of which I disclaim responsibility, but
which appears not improbable, relates that
while the edict was under discussion, Abrabanel,
a wealthy and philanthropic Jew, had offered
his whole enormous fortune to the king, whose
greed for gold was well known, if he would
refuse to issue the edict. The king seemed
favorably impressed with the offer, and hesi-
tated to sign the document. Torquemada at
this critical moment, when the life and happi-
ness of a hundred thousand human beings was
trembling in the balance, forced his way into
the king's cabinet. ' He held a crucifix in his
hand, and addressed the king, in an angry tone,
in the following words : "Jesus was sold once
by Iscariot : now go and sell him again." The
bigoted king could not withstand such a
pressure ; he yielded, and signed the edict.

The misery which followed defies description.
Imagine a hundred thousand households broken
up, their members deprived of all means of
making a living, no country in the world ready
to receive them, means of transportation scarce ;
while on the other hand it was not considered
sinful, but rather an act of piety, to rob, mur-

98 Messianic Expectations.

der, or sell into slavery the weary wanderers.
Torquemada however, who thought to crush
the Marranos with this blow, also was mistaken.
Thousands of Spanish Jews perished at that
time ; thousands of others succeeded in reach-
ing other countries ; but the majority remained.
They embraced Christianity, and swelled the
ranks of the Marranos. How they must haVe
loved their new religion can easily be imagined.
The Jews having been removed, the Spanish
Inquisition had now to deal with the Marranos
only. The task was not an easy one, and the
battle was fought with skill and fanaticism on
both sides. Nor were the Marranos permitted
to convert their property into money and leave
the country. The very suspicion that one in-
tended to depart was sufficient to indict him,
rob him of his property, and sentence him to
grace the next auto-da-fd with his presence.
The papal court grew rich from bribes which
both the Inquisition and the representatives of
the Marranos offered to prevent edicts in their
favor or disfavor.

This persecution was continued during more
than two hundred years, until the last of the
Marranos had either died in the dungeons of
the Inquisition, or expired on the pyre, or made
good his escape. And what was gained by this
persecution ? Reason was hot suppressed ; the

The Spanish Inquisition. 99

very Marranos were the secret promoters of the
religious revolution which was soon to take
place. After many a defeat, Protestantism
gained the victory. It had come to stay. But
Spain, rich in itself, and still enriched by
the rain of gold which America showered upon
it, grew poorer every day. Her population
grew up in ignorance and bigotry, and never
learned how to use money properly. Her best,
her most intelligent and enterprising citizens,
had been driven away ; and she degenerated to
her present condition. The Jews and the Mar-
ranos exiled from Spain aided the rise of Eng-
land and the Netherlands. In the same degree
that Spanish cities declined, the cities of Hol-
land and England grew in wealth and prosper-
ity. The policy of the Inquisition had been a
suicidal one.

The miseries through which our ancestors
had to pass during these two centuries in that
country made them naturally look for aid from
without ; and Messianic expectations became
again the order of the day. Any adventurer
who would have assumed the role of a Messiah
would have found a willing ear, support, and fol-
lowers, at that time.

Two men, on occasions working together, at
other times acting independently of each other,
produced the greatest sensation at that period,

lOO Messianic Expectations.

and caused quite a stir among both Jews and
Gentiles. It has not jet been decided whether
David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho were ad-
venturers, impostors, or deluded partisans ; but
their history is so marvellous, so romantic, so
fascinating, and at the same time so unknown to
the public, that I shall, in my next lecture, give
a short sketch of it.

VII.
DAVID RUBENI AND SOLOMON MOLCHO.

©ISCOVERIES and inventions are of such
frequent occurrence in our days that noth-
ing less than the discovery of a road con-
necting the earth with the moon would startle
us; and even then we should easily overcome
the surprise and naively ask, "What next?"
Whenever we are informed by the press of a
new invention or discovery, no matter how far-
reaching in its consequences, we take such news
as a matter of course : as something that we
had a right to expect of the inventor or discov-
erer.

Such indifference may appear abnormal and
discouraging; but it keeps us cool and level-
headed. If the reported discovery or invention
does not rest upon a solid foundation of proba-
bility, we dismiss it at once as a fabrication, and
give it no further attention. Imagination has
become subordinate to reason in our days.

A few hundred years ago such indifference
did not prevail, and every new discovery
addressed itself rather to human imagination

I02 Messianic Expectations.

than to human reason. The discovery - of
America by Christopher, Columbus set the
world almost wild with astonishment and sul--
prise. Not alone that a new continent was
added to the world, not alone that all the
former theories as to the shape of the earth
were at once annihilated : the newly discovered
country, with its strange plants, strange animals,
and still stranger human population, showered
at once such a rain of wealth upon Spain, the
happy land which had been instrumental in its
discovery, that the imagination of all Europeans
became heated to the highest possible degree,
and the most fabulous narratives of travellers
found eager listeners and enthusiastic believers.
Nothing seemed impossible after such a discov-
ery. The city fathers of Genoa and the princes
of Portugal now blamed themselves for not hav-
ing listened to the plans of Columbus ; and
they, as well as the rest of the European princes,
were ready to invest in the most adventurous
schemes, simply because they were afraid of
losing another chance, and because the most in-
credible stories now seemed probable.

The interior of Africa, though much better
known to-day than ever before, is still shrouded
in mystery ; and the exploits of the late Mahdi,
the siege and capture of Khartoum, the failure
of England to liberate the heroic Gordon, and
what is of still greater weight, the uncertainty

David Rtibeni and Solomon Molcho. 103

as to the final fate of the general, are proofs
that we have still to learn a great deal about
these far-off regions. Five hundred years ago
these countries were still less known to the
Europeans.

In the year 1524 a man arrived at Venice via
Palestine and Egypt, who claimed to have come
from the interior of Africa. He gave his name
as David Rubeni ; he said that he was the
brother of Joseph, a Jewish prince who ruled
over a large kingdom, the inhabitants of which
were no others than the descendants of the
tribes Reuben, Gad, and Manasse. Joseph, as
well as he himself, according to his genealogy,
was descended in a, direct line from King David.
He was in possession of credentials of the Jewish
government and of letters of recommendation
of Portuguese residents : he also carried a silk
flag upon which the ten commandments were
embroidered, and he spoke no other language
than a corrupt Hebrew, which the European
Jews could hardly understand. He said that
he was charged with a message to Pope Clem-
ent VH., who had ascended the papal chair in
1523. Although he himself did not say much
about his errand, his attendant gave the secret
away, that King Joseph, David's brother, had
an army of three hundred thousand well-drilled
soldiers in readiness to fall upon the Turks and
to reconquer Palestine ; but that he was in need

I04 Messianic Expectations.

of fire-arms and ammunition ; and that therefore
he had sent his brother to ask them of the Pope
or of any other prince who should be willing to
invest in the enterprise. He furthermore re-
ported that gold and diamonds were in his
country of no value whatever, as the precious
metal and the costly gems were so common
there that people would not pick them up, and
children only played with them. David pre-
tended never to have studied any Jewish book,
but claimed to be a soldier by profession. He
bragged that he had killed with his own hand
forty men in one single encounter. The good
people of Venice listened eagerly to these re-
ports, and never doubted a word. David was
a homely looking fellow, of small stature and
swarthy complexion. He was no orator what-
soever, but must have possessed a peculiar qual-
ity of brazen-faced presumption. At Venice he
shrewdly avoided his co-religionists and re-
mained in the house of the sea-captain who had
brought him from Alexandria. His attendant,
however, drew attention upon him ; people
called at his residence and considered it a great
honor to be admitted into his presence and to
aid his enterprise with money. A rich Venetian
Hebrew, Mazliach or Felix by name, received
from him the honorable distinction of acting
for him in the capacity of a banker ; that 'is, to
discount the notes which he drew on his brother

David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho. 105

Joseph. After a short rest, David proceeded to
Rome. Riding a snow-white horse, and accom-
panied by his attendant and an interpreter, he
appeared at the gates of the Vatican, and to the
surprise of all was immediately admitted to an
audience before the Cardinal Giulio. A few days
later the Pope himself received him, and accepted
his credentials. These papers were sent to the
court of Portugal for examination, and were
promptly returned from there as genuine docu-
ments. The Pope thereupon treated David
with the honors and courtesies due to an
ambassador, and consulted him almost daily in
private conferences.

Pope Clement VII. was one of the best popes
who ever graced the papal throne ; but he was
also one of the most unfortunate. He lived at
a time when all Europe was in a state of chaotic
disorder. The Reformation, which had begun
with Luther, had spread all over Europe and
had found a stronghold in Germany. The Ger-
man Emperor, Charles V, being at the same
time King of Spain and ruler over the newly
discovered America — a prince in whose realms,
as the saying was, the sun would never set —
wished to humble Italy and to press it down to
a secondary position in the council of nations.
This made the position of the Pope difficult. If
he should oppose the Emperor's secular policy,
Charles was likely to encourage Protestantism

io6 Messianic Expectations.

in retaliation for the papal resistance ; if, on the
other hand, Clement should win over the Em-
peror to his plans in regard to the suppression
of heresy, he would be obliged to make conces-
sions at the expense of the Italian prestige.
Nothing short of a crusade against the Turks
could help the Pope out of his dilemma. At a
time when the most impossible seemed to be
possible, when anything was believed, David's
story was not at all discredited by the Pope ; for
there was an opportunity for him which he could
not afford to lose. An army of three hundred
thousand soldiers ready to be sent against the
Turks was the very thing he needed.

Palestine granted to the Jews, there remained
the rest of the vast territory of the Mohammed-
ans to be divided, for which purpose a crusade
could easily be preached. The Pope, placing
himself at the head of the undertaking, would
regain the lost prestige of the Roman church.
Protestantism would be forgotten amidst the
din of arms, and the ambition of the Emperor
would naturally be turned away from Italy into
other channels. All these advantages could be
obtained for a few guns, a few barrels of gun-
powder, and a little toleration shown to the
Jews.

If the Pope, the head of Christendom, thus
treated a Jew, what could be expected of the
Jews but that they should become frantic with

David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho. 107

joy ? The greater the misery which they had
lately suffered in Spain, and which the Mar-
ranos were still suffering there and in Portugal,
the more did they cling to the hope of restora-
tion held out to them, as it appears, by a
shrewd adventurer. This again shows that
the Messianic expectations of our ancestors
were of a political and not of a religious nature.
The idea that the Messiah was to remove the
sins of the world is a Christian invention, and
the most believing of the Jews never believed
in that doctrine. Their Mashiach was expected
to be a king, who should restore their political
independence, and nothing else. Just at the
time when their misery seemed unbearable,
when their existence was threatened with total
extinction, they received the welcome news
that there existed a Jewish king, a descendant
of David ; that this king commanded a large
army ; that he was immensely rich ; that he
was ready to assert his influence in their be-
half ; and that he was about to reconquer Jeru-
salem and to re-establish a Jewish kingdom.
No matter whether the report was true or not,
whether they were the dupes of an adventurer
or not, such were exactly the hopes which they
held in regard to a Messiah. And, after all, as
long as the Pope believed in the man and
treated him with courtesy never shown a Jew
before, why should they not believe in him?

io8 Messianic Expectations.

Under the given conditions they were justi-
fied in expecting some grain of truth in his
statement, even if the bulk of his stories should
be fictitious. They crowded around Rubeni,
and supplied him with all the money he wanted.
David played his part in a masterly manner :
he kept the crowd at a respectful distance from
his person, showed no signs of greed for money,
and made such an impression upon the giver
that he considered himself happy when his
donation was accepted by David.

No practical results, however, were reached
by all the secret sessions which he held with
the Pope ; and the latter allowed him to depart,
when a letter of invitation arrived from the
court of Portugal for him.

Joao III., of Portugal, a king who ruined his
country by his greed and stupidity, who knew
of no higher policy than to fill his purse, no
matter at whose expense, wished to introduce
the Inquisition into his domain, for no other
reason but that it was a well-paying institution.
Portugal was then as full of Marranos as was
the neighboring Spain ; and Joao looked with
envy across the boundary lines at the harvest
which the Inquisition yielded there. The Pope,
however," notwithstanding his urgent demands,
was not ready to give the necessary permit.
While the Portuguese court and the Vatican
were in communication, and both the court and

David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho. 109

the Marranos tried their utmost to get the
Pope on their side, Joao had heard of the ap-
pearance of Rubeni and of his errand. He
changed his policy at once, and invited him to
Lisbon, with the view of making a treaty with
him. Rubeni, who apparently must have been
very liberal in his promises, received from the
king the assurance of his aid. Five vessels
loaded with guns and ammunition were to be
given to him in consideration of an amount
of money and commercial advantages specified
in a secret clause. During the time in which
this important business was transacted, David
was treated by the king like a prince ; and
all the edicts against the Marranos were can-
celled.

This unfortunate class of people, living in
constant danger of losing life and property,
tormented by the pangs of conscience, sur-
rounded by bigotry, fanaticism, and superstition,
had finally lost all self-control. A great many
of them had become mentally so deranged that
they would believe in the most absurd notions.
When Rubeni appeared at the court and was
received with such high distinction, thousands
of Spanish Marranos escaped to Portugal ; and
they all hailed him as the Messiah who would
save them from their unnatural position, and
restore both the Jewish nation and religion.
All eyes were directed longingly at him, in the

I lo Messianic Expectations.

expectation of the wonderful events which were
to happen.

A young man of noble family of the class
of the Marranos, a youth of rare beauty, of
poetical genius, and of a commanding power
of speech, became so highly impressed with the
appearance of Rubeni, and the hopes con-
nected with him, that he made himself unknow-
ingly a tool in the hands of the adventurer.
Diego Pirez, born in the year 1501, was about
fwenty-four years of age when Rubeni arrived
in Portugal. Born among the Marranos, he
had received an excellent education. He spoke
several languages fluently, and was not ignorant
in Hebrew literature. He held the office of a
clerk at the royal court of justice, and stood in
great favor with the government. Nothing else
was known of him before ; but no sooner did
Rubeni appear than Diego Pirez had all kinds
of dreams and visions in regard to the advent
of a Messiah and the future of the Marranos.
He approached the adventurer in order to find
out directly of him whether his plans would
correspond with his visions. Rubeni, as usual,
remained cold, and did not betray his plans.
Pirez thought he should win his confidence by
his open return to Judaism ; an act which was
punishable with death. He performed the
Abrahamitic rite on himself; and the loss of
blood which followed caused a dangerous fever,

David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho. 1 1 1

during which Pirez had again frightful visions,
all relating to the appearance of a Messiah who
was to save the Marranos. He even thought
he heard the voice of an angel, who appointed
him for that mission. From that time he
changed his name, and called himself Solomon
Molcho, which is about the same as King Solo-
mon. Having thrown aside the mask of Chris-
tianity, he could no longer remain at home.
He escaped and fled to Palestine. The young
enthusiastic Marrano who had had the courage
to return openly to Judaism created quite a stir
in the Orient. He gave himself out at first
as an ambassador of David Rubeni, but later
as the Messiah himself ; and his dreams in
which he- foresaw his early death, and that he
should be sacrificed as a burnt offering to God,
were the constant themes of his lectures, which
were listened to by thousands of people, and
afterwards (in 1529) printed in Salonica. The
substance of his addresses was always the same,
namely, that at the end of the year 5300 of the
world, or 1540 of the new era, the Messiah
would appear; that Rome would be destroyed,
and Jerusalem rebuilt. His fame spread, and
all kinds of fantastic hopes were connected with
his name.

In the meantime. King Joao HI. again
changed his policy. Without giving any cause,
he notified Rubeni to quit Portugal within two

112 Messianic Expectations.

months, and began to urge the papal court to
establish an inquisitory tribunal in his king-
dom against the Marranos. Clement hesitated.
He could not arrive at conclusions, partly
because he abhorred the crimes committed
by the Inquisition, and partly because the sus-
pense was valuable to him, as both -parties
appearing before him did not come with empty
hands.

About this time, Solomon Molcho arrived in
Ancona with the intention of going to Rome to
convert the Pope to Judaism, even at the risk of
his life. In Rome he secluded himself for
thirty days, fasting and praying, and again had
visions. He foresaw that a great flood would
submerge Rome, and that Lisbon would be
destroyed by an earthquake. Of these visions
he spoke in the synagogues of Rome every Sab-
bath ; and it seems that the Pope himself began
to believe in him. The fact remains that Clem-
ent VII. not only received him frequently in
audience, but protected him against his enemies.
The flood which he had predicted and the earth-
quake of Lisbon occurred in fact ; and the Pope
no longer doubted his divine mission. It is
said that once the Pope saved Molcho's life,
when the Inquisition had taken hold of him and
had sentenced him to be burnt in public, by
substituting another criminal for him, and
secretly aiding him in his escape.

David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho. 1 1 3

In 1531, we find Molcho in Venice again in
company with Rubeni, who dealt with the city
council as he had formerly dealt with the Pope
and King Joao III. All of a sudden both men
conceived the adventurous idea of travelling to
Regensburg, where the. Emperor had called a
diet, in order to convert him to Judaism.
Charles granted them a few audiences, but soon
imprisoned them and took them to Mantua,
where both were tried on charges of heresy
brought against them. Diego Pirez was sen-
tenced to death upon the pyre. At the last
moment a messenger sent by the Emperor
offered him his life if he would repent and
return to the church. Molcho answered that
he was pleased to offer his life to God as a
martyr ; that he repented one act only ; namely,
to have believed in his own Messiahship. He
died without a murmur. Rubeni, who could
not be sentenced as a heretic, was taken to
Spain, and died in the dungeons of the Inquisi-
tion, after the torture had made him confess the
names of a number of Marranos, who were
burned in consequence. The hopes, however,
which had been linked to his name and that of
Solomon Molcho did not die out for some time.
Not before the year 1540 had passed away with-
out a Messiah making his appeai^ance were these
hopes relinquished.

Although only a comparatively short time has

114 Messianic Expectations.

elapsed since: although the art of printing must
have facilitated the establishment of facts :
although the printed sermons of Solomon
Molcho and a diary of Rubeni are still extant,
the queer career and still queerer actions of
these two adventurers are still clouded in mys-
tery. Their connections with the Pope, with
the King of Portugal, with the patricians o^
Venice, with the Emperor of Germany, are his-
torical facts ; and still nothing definite is known
about their transactions with these influential
persons. Their history, fabulous and romantic
as it may appear, contains, however, a few
points which bear unmistakable evidence to
the correctness of the propositions which my
lectures on Messianic expectations are to ad-
vocate.

First, — The Jewish conception of a Messiah,
as long as such hopes were indulged in, has
always been the same ; namely, that of a man
who would restore the national existence. The
theories of hereditary sin, of eternal damnation,
of redemption through the Messiah, have always
been rejected as absurd by the Jews, even at
the time of the Inquisition, when the wildest
confusion of ideas was prevalent on account of
the Marranos, who had inhaled the doctrines of
both Christianity and Judaism.

Second, — Messianic expectations, at the time
of Rubeni and Molcho, show already the traces

David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho. 115

of old age. They had already lost their strength
and their fervor. Hopes were indulged in, but
no practical steps were taken to realize them.
These hopes, even, would have vanished had
they not been kept alive by the persecution
from which our ancestors were suffering at the
time. If Messianic expectations had not been
on the decline, they would have borne better
fruit at that peculiar historical period than the
fantastic exploits of Rubeni and Molcho. The
whole excitement did not last longer than about
eight years, and was confined to Spain and Italy
only ; and, after all, it affected the Christians
more than the Jews. A pope, a king, and the
aristocracy of a renowned city seem to have
been the dupes of two Jewish adventurers,
while the Jews only lost a small sum of
money.

Third, — It appears to me that the Messianic
character which was attributed to both men was
an invention of their friends, a blind to cover
the true inwardness of their mission. It seems
to me that they were nothing but the secret
agents of the Marranos to work at the courts of
Rome, Lisbon, and Regensburg in their favor ;
and that when both had lost their lives in their
dangerous mission, legend took hold of them,
and surrounded them with a wreath of marvel-
lous deeds. It seems that they worked con-
scientiously for their cause, and not for private

1 1 6 Messianic Expectations.

gain. There is no trace to be found that they
lived extravagantly, or that they amassed
money. They drew their , necessary expenses,
which were little ; and the rest of the money
intrusted to them was consulted in bribing the
corrupt courtiers whose influence was needed
and could not be obtained otherwise.

These points evidently prove that Messianic
expectations must have been the temporary
hope of a merely political character, which had
practically died out with the occasion which had
produced them ; namely, with the loss of the
Jewish nationality. They furthermore prove
that these expectations never took the form of
a doctrine, and never supported the structure of
Judaism. They were fanciful decorations on the
outside of the building, but were never essen-
tial to our religion.

Another cause which perpetuated their life
•for some time was the Kabbalah, a disease
which was caused by the unhealthy atmosphere
in which Judaism was compelled to live, a cancer
which had slowly but steadily spread over its
whole bociy, and almost caused its death. At
the very time when all Europe shook off the
torpor of the Middle Ages, and began to inhale
the morning breeze of the new day, Judaism
was stretched on the sick-bed with that disease ;
and if we have not yet gained a more respected
position in the communities in which we live, it

David Rubeni and Solotnon Molcho. WJ

is due to the delay in our advancement caused
by that sickness.

As the Kabbalah has also produced a would-
be Messiah, the last one of repute, I shall intro-
duce his history by a lecture on the Kabbalah,
its origin, growth, and evil consequences.

VIII.

THE KABBALAH.

'HERE has never been an individual or a
nation which has been altogether original

^ in its thoughts or actions. We call the
productions of an author original in so far
as the same subject has never been treated
before with the same strength and in the same
words ; but if you enter upon a close scrutiny,
you will find that the greater part of them is
the reflex of ideas current at the time of the
writer, and that even the few for which origi-
nality is claimed are the product of a combina-
tion of inherited sentiment, study, and special
accidental impressions. The secret of the
success of an able writer and speaker is not
to be found in his originality, but in just the
opposite ; in that he gives expression to the
ideas of his readers or hearers.

We constantly give and take. No matter
how secluded a person lives, his thoughts
will be influenced by his surroundings : no
matter how deeply a nation is sunk in barbar-
ism, it cannot withstand the influence of civ-
iiS

The Kabbalah. 119

ilizatien brought upon it by other nations
with which it happens to come in contact.

There is perhaps no nation on earth which has
come in contact with a greater number of
others, and has stood in a closer relation to
them, than the Jewish nation. It has mingled
with Egyptians and Phoenicians, with Assyrians,
Babylonians, and Persians, with the Greeks and
the Romans, and with all the modern nations. Its
record dates from the time when the Pyramids
were built, and can be traced through all ages
to this very day. It is therefore no wonder at
all that its originality was affected by its sur-
roundings, that it has worked into its system
the popular notions of all the peoples which I
have enumerated, and that it was influenced
by the current ideas and philosophies of
the different ages. It is an undeniable fact
that though we have given, we have also
received ; that though we have influenced
others, we have been influenced by them in turn.
It is a grave mistake on the part of our friends
to think that Judaism has remained intact and
unchanged from the time of its origin until
now, and that the Israelites of to-day hold the
same views as did their great-grandparents
two thousand years ago. A great many ideas,
good ones as well as bad ones, have found
their way into Judaism, which were by no
means essential to its spirit. After they had

I20 Messianic Expectations.

been absorbed, they hardened within its system,
and the historian of our days, who examines the
phenomenon, wonders now how such a strange
matter could have ever grown so deeply and
firmly into the living wood that it is almost
impossible to remove it without harming the
tree itself.

The religion of the Babylonians and that of
the Persians exerted their influence upon Juda-
ism, as well as the Egyptian cults, which stood
godfather at its cradle. By degrees the theo-
ries held by the Parsees of God and the world
crept into Judaism ; and the loom of time
worked them into the Jewish tissue. From
the time of the intercourse with these nations
we find that a belief in the .existence of super-
natural beings, in angels of light and darkness,
springs up in our religion ; that it develops, -
and that by the side of the commandment,
" Thou shalt not make any representation of any
being, be it in heaveii or on earth," the most
fanciful descriptions of the heavenly regions are
indulged in. At the very time when the Baby-
lonian Talmud was near its completion, a
mystical book appeared, the Sefer Jezirah, the
book of Creation, in which not only the different
classes of angels are named and their daily
duties minutely recorded, but in which the
writer does not shrink from describing the
throne of God, and from capping the climax by

The Kabbalah. 121

giving a measurement of his limbs. The length
of his beard, for instance, is given at ten thou-
sand five hundred Persian miles. Such notions
were surely not Jewish, but still they were held
by our ancestors. There is not one philosophi-
cal system known which has not left some
traces in the structure of Judaism ; and while
at times the rational system of Aristotle pre-
tiominated, there were times when mysticism
ruled supreme.

Maimonides, the exponent of the twelfth cen-
tury, the greatest philosopher of his time, had
returned to the Aristotelian system, and at-
tempted to interpret the Bible in a rational
manner. He was the outspoken enemy of mys-
ticism ; he denied the existence of miracles, and
endeavored to explain the Mosaic laws and rites
from a scientific point of view. This rational-
ism created a storm of indignation in orthodox
circles, which broke forth with still greater vio-
lence after his death. It raged for two hundred
years, and became finally the cause of a reaction,
of a return to mysticism, and of the origin of the
Kabbalah.

The burning question of those days was ex-
actly the same one which is debated to-day,
namely, the divine origin of the Bible. Starting
from the belief that God himself was its author,
the question arose how its discrepancies could
be accounted for. How could a divine author

122 Messianic Expectations.

admit into his book passages like that of Lot
and his daughters, that of Judah and Thamar,
and others ? What was the use of a legislation
which in course of time had become imprac-
ticable ? There remained only two courses :
either to say that the Bible was the work of
human authorship, or to find a key by which it
could be read in a different way. Maimonides
would have chosen the first way, had he lived
longer. The second way seemed to most the
best ; and, as necessity is the mother of inven-
tion, the key was produced. A secret meaning
was attributed to every word of the Bible, which
could be obtained by changing the letters and
substituting such others for them as would rep-
resent the same numerical value. It must be
understood that every Hebrew letter represents
a number. The first ten letters of the alphabet
stand for the numbers from one to ten ; the
next ten stand for the tenths ; and so on. Each
word has, therefore, a numerical value. Sup-
posing, now, that the letters of a word would
give the number 1 20 ; the Kabbalist could sub-
stitute any other word for it, provided its letters
would also count up 120. This system opened
the door to an unbounded mysticism. The
rationalism of Maimonides was silenced at
once : the Bible now became, in the hands of a
clever Kabbalist, the proof of everything, no
matter how absurd ; and an entirely new reli-

The Kabbalah. 123

gious system began building upon this hypoth-
esis.

The world, imperfect as it is, was said not to
have been created by God, the Perfect, the Infi-
nite, who was called in the language of the
Kabbalah the " En Sof ; " but that between this
world and the Supreme Being there were ten
circles, or " Sefiroth," of which God, the En
Sof, formed the centre. The substance of the
first circle which had emanated from God was
similar to him, but not exactly like him : the
second was the effusion of the first, similar, but
not like it : the third of the second, and so
on, each Sefirah growing farther from perfec-
tion. The visible world was the effusion of the
last circle ; and by means of these circles, which
were flowing into one another like the colors
of a rainbow, man stood in connection with
God, and God with man. The En Sof was
infinite ; but the Sefiroth were finite. The En
Sof had no bodily form ; but the Sefiroth had a
spiritual and bodily form, and through their
medium God could appear in a visible form,
and reveal himself to man.

The human soul was a citizen of this higher
world, and stood in direct connection with the
Sefiroth. It could, therefore, exert an influence
upon them, and through them upon the highest
divinity. A noble soul could force the En Sof
to send his blessings through the channels of

124 Messianic Expectations.

the Sefiroth upon this world ; while a wicked
soul could hinder the divine activity. Good
actions would facilitate, ignoble actions inter-
rupt, the divine effusions. Every rite and every
ceremony was of mystical importance : they
were the instruments to influence the divinity.
The prescribed daily prayers were positively
effective provided they were directed to the
proper Sefirah. All prayers were to be ad-
dressed to them, and not directly^ to the En Sof.
The formula of the prayer was alone of impor-
tance, not its meaning and sense. By means of
the prayer the Kabbalist could work miracles.

All souls were said to have been created from
the beginning as the residents of the Sefiroth.
Every soul was preordained to a union with a
body, and for a life in this world. In this
earthly career it was to prove that in spite of its
union with a body, it could preserve its celestial
purify. If a soul was successful in this life, it
ascended forever into the higher spheres ; but
if it succumbed to earthly temptations, it had to
return again and again to this world until finally
it had passed its earthly life in perfect purity.
Most of the souls, however, were forgetful of
their heavenly origin ; and thus it happened
that most of the souls on earth were old ones
who had lived there before. New ones were
rarely sent to the world, because, as the number
of souls on earth was limited, no new soul could

The Kabbalah. 125

be started until an old one had returned forever
to a higher sphere. The Kabbalist could tell
at sight whether a person was a new soul or an
old one. Not until all souls had passed their
earthly existence, and had returned to their
heavenly abode, would the end of days be
reached, when all souls and all the Sefiroth
would again be absorbed and drawn in by the
En Sof. The soul of the Messiah would be the
last one to appear ; and his advent could, there-
fore, be accelerated or' retarded by the goodness
or depravity of mankind. • In all these fanciful
doctrines we can easily discern, not only the
traces of Persian mysticism, of Buddhism, and
of Mohammedanism, but also the prevailing
Christian theories ; as, for instance, the power
of prayer when directed to a mediator who
stood between God and man, and the pos-
sibility of an incarnation by means of the
Sefiroth. All these doctrines were secretly
transmitted from teacher to pupil. A Rabbi
Isaac, called " the blind," Rabbi Asriel, and
Rabbi Jehuda ben Jakar, and Nachmanides,
the most inveterate antagonist of Maimonides,
are named as the first teachers of the new
science.

This science, however, could not at first gain
a firm foothold ; for it lacked authority. People
would ask. How do the Kabbalists know all
these things.^ How do they know that their

126 Messianic Expectations.

key is the right one ? But this deficiency also
was soon to be supplied.

Rabbi Mose ben Shem Tob de Leon, born at
Lyons in 1250, was a man of inventive genius.
He eked out a miserable life by copying books.
He was a spendthrift, and always pinched for
money, at the same time unscrupulous as to the
means of getting it. He had learned a little
of everything, but had never acquired thorough-
ness in any study. He had studied the Kabba-
lah too ; that is, the few doctrines which then
were taugfht. When -he found that an appetite
for this study was springing up amongst his con-
temporaries, he wrote several treatises on that
subject. He failed, however, to win glory or
money from the literary productions which ap-
peared under his own name. The idea once
struck him that a Kabbalistic book which should
appear under the name of a recognized author-
ity might have a ready sale. As author for such
a book, he selected Simon ben Jochai, a rabbi
of great renown, who had lived in Palestine in
the second century, and of whose ascetic life a
number of legends had survived. He was said
to have lived for nineteen years as a hermit in a
cave, to have fasted six days in a week out of the
seven, and to have received direct revelations
from God. The teachings of this rabbi, if writ-
ten in the Chaldean language, the language of
the Talmud, would not be doubted. Mose de

The Kabbalah. 127

Leon went to work, and one day he surprised
his friends with a copy from a manuscript which,
as he said, had been discovered by Nachmanides
in the grave of Simon ben Jochai. He had sent
it to his son, but a storm had carried it to
Spain, and from there into his (Mose's) posses-
sion.

The book was entitled the "Sohar," which
means splendor, and was divided into sev-
eral chapters, having no connection with one
another. It was filled with the most fantastic
and absurd narratives. Angels and devils. Par-
adise and Gehenna, played a prominent part
therein. The souls were traced through all
their wanderings ; and their mystic relations to
the Sefiroth and the En Sof were considerably
dwelt upon. All this knowledge of the spirit'
ual world had been obtained by revelation.
Simon ben Jochai, the alleged author of the
book, had learned these secrets from God him-
self. God himself had instructed h^m how to
use the key to the Bible, and how to read it
correctly. By means of his ascetic life, he had
penetrated Sefirah after Sefirah, until he had
been in direct communication with the En Sof.

The Messiah was not ignored ; he was to
appear in the beginning of the fourteenth cen-
tury, and by this statement the clever counter-
feiter betrayed himself. He ceased to be the
anointed king who was to restore the political

128 Messianic Expectations.

status quo ante ; and he became in the Sohar a
mystical being, the incarnation of the En Sof,
the exact image of the Messiah taught by Chris-
tianity. And still such theories were called
Jewish. The demand for the book increased ^•
but Mose de Leon did not reap the fruits of his
labor. He died. The original manuscript was
now demanded by the influential men of that
time, but could not be found. Mose's widow
insisted upon it that her husband had written
the whole book himself. The Sohar became,
nevertheless, an authority. Its origin from
Simon ben Jochai was never questioned.
Soon the new revelation overgrew Talmud
and Bible, and the night of mysticism lulled
the Jews into a magnetic slumber.

We may well ask how it was possible that
the common sense for which the Israelites have
ever been noted could have become so thor-
oughly suppressed as to let them accept such
an aberration of the mind ; a book which bears
the traces of fraud right on its face.

Well, it is the most impossible which is gener-
ally sure to happen. Our imagination is quicker
reached than our reason. Mysticism always has
had a secret charm over mankind ; and even
to-day, in our enlightened age, there are thou-
sands who, in spite of all exposures, believe in
Spiritualism, in clairvoyance, and other mystic
absurdities. At that time there were added

The Kabbalah. 129

some other reasons, of still greater force. First
of all, the proud spirit of our ancestors had
been broken by constant persecution. A man
whose life and property are constantly endan-
gered loses naturally the force of reason, and
grows superstitious. Soldiers, sailors, and high-
way robbers, are as a rule the most supersti-
tious people on earth. The law which com-
pelled our ancestors to wear a peculiarly shaped
hat, or a yellow spot on their outside garment,
and thus had made them a constant target for
ridicule, had destroyed their self-respect, and
had made them low-spirited and dull. Further-
more, their neighbors were as superstitious as
they were. The spirit of mysticism at that
time held the whole world under its sway.
The Crusades had opened the eyes of the
western barbarians to a civilization in the east
of which they had never had a conception.
Whatever they saw of adroit mechanism in
Constantinople or eastern cities they took for
the secret work of evil spirits. For instance,
they could not understand why some people
looked up to the stars and made charts of the
night sky. They believed that astronomers
received information from the stars in regard
to the future of man. Astronomy was changed
into astrology, in which even men like Wallen-
stein believed. Geometry, not known before in
western Europe, puzzled the uncultured barba-

130 Messianic Expectations.

rian ; and he thought a secret power was at-
tached to the triangles, squares, and circles, of
the mathematician. The medical art, which
was not known in western countries, but had
its seat in the east, remained a conundrum to
the Crusaders. Every botanist and every phy-
sician seemed to them to be in secret communi-
cation with superhuman forces. The belief
spread that it was possible to change base
metals into gold ; and the cradle of our chem-
istry was alchemy. All these absurdities were,
however, the fertilizers which stimulated the-
barren ground, ^nd brought forth all our mod-
ern sciences ; but the scientist of that age had
to work and to experiment in secrecy. The
church felt instinctively the danger which
would arise for it from these studies, and stig-
matized science as the black art, as the machi-
nation of evil spirits. It persecuted and ostra-
cized as sorcerers and enchanters all those who
would indulge in such studies, and compelled
them thus to carry on their researches in secret,
in the darkness of the night, which aroused
still more the superstition of the populace.

It is, therefore, not at all surprising that the
same symptoms made themselves visible on the
Jewish body, as it suffered from the same sick-
ness ; the difference was that these absurdities
were worked out in a peculiar Jewish manner
by our ancestors. Numerous commentaries on

The Kabbalah. 1 3 1

the Sohar were produced ; all the secret arts,
as necromancy, astrology, and alchemy, were
drawn into the Kabbalah ; and an abundance
of impostors arose, who claimed to be in posses-
sion of King Solomon's ring, and to possess
power over the spiritual world. These imposi-
tions would have done little harm -had not the
study of the Kabbalah overtowered finally the
study of Talmud and Bible, destroyed reason,
changed the whole religious system, created
and introduced new ceremonies, which were
palmed off as truly Jewish ; so that finally
Judaism could no longer be identified in the
form in which it then appeared.

Our present orthodoxy is the last remnant
of the Kabbalistic age. What our orthodox
brethren defend as Judaism is Kabbalism.
Many of the prescribed prayers, the number
of which was not to be abrogated, are of Kab-
balistic origin : most of the ceremonies still in
use among them were produced in the age of
the Kabbalah. The New Year's day and the
day of Atonement, formerly days of joy, re-
ceived a gloomy character, which still prevails.
The Kaddish prayer, which reform has not yet
been strong enough to abolish, but which it has
at least modernized and rationalized, is a relic
of that age, and was supposed to hold a mystic
power over the souls of the departed members
of the family. The words of the Kaddish prayer,

132 Messianic Expectations.

which in their simple form contain a glorifica-
tion of God, were supposed to contain an en-
tirely different meaning when read with the
key of which the Kabbalist was the owner.
The burial rites, with all their superstitious
practices, still in use among our orthodox breth-
ren, are an offshoot from the Kabbalah. Even
I remember the time when Kabbalistic amulets
were still in use and were placed over the
cradle of a new-born child to prevent evil spir-
its from harming it. And all these supersti-
tious rites were and are still called Judaism !

The Kabbalah clung by necessity to Messi-
anic expectations ; but the most fantastic and
absurd hopes were connected with his appear-
ance ; and if there are still Jews living who
conscientiously believe in the coming of a
Messiah, they believe in the Kabbalistic Mes-
siah, and not in the Messiah originally expected
at the time of their political depression.

It is now about one hundred years since the
reform movement began (with Moses Men-
delssohn) ; and its blows were directed first of
all against the Kabbalah. From the time that
Israel was relieved of that incubus, it began to
live again and to reconquer its lost position in
the world. All the present difficulties which
we experience in the strained relations between
orthodoxy and reform are due to the rapidity of
our progress during the last hundred years.

The Kabbalah. 133

We had overslept ourselves, and had to make
up for lost time. Our present reform does not
intend to harm Judaism, for it loves it ; but it
is compelled to blast the last remnants of Kab-
balism, which by the ignorant masses are taken
for Judaism.

The Kabbalah has produced a Messiah such
as could be expected of it ; a man who did more
harm to Judaism than any previous Messiah.
He was as great an impostor as the Kabbafah
was an imposture ; and still, men like Baruch
Spinoza, the greatest philosopher of his age, did
not know what to make of him.

Sabbatai Zwi, the last Jewish Messiah on
record, filled for the last time the hearts of his
contemporaries with the delusive hopes of
national restoration, and afterwards alienated
thousands of his followers from their religion.
His activity falls in the middle of the seven-
teenth century ; and, although his history gives
evidence that he was a mixture of fraud, mys-
ticism, and self-delusion, it is as romantic as
that of any of his predecessors, and gives a true
picture of the Kabbalistic swindle by which his
time was imposed upon.

IX.

SABBATAI ZWI.

*HE struggle between darkness and light,
as witnessed at the dawn of every day, is
^ a sight well worth seeing. , It seems as if
two giants were wrestling with each other
for the supremacy over the world. While the
eastern horizon assumes a pale roseate hue,
deep darkness still hovers above the western
sky ; and it appears as if armies of clouds were
despatched from there toward the east to sup-
press the rising light. Then a mixture of light
and darkness spreads for some time over the
world, in which all objects take on the most
fanciful appearance. Finally, the clouds recoil
from before the arrows which the rising sun
sends from his radiant chariot against them,
objects become discernible in their true form,
and the world hails the victorious day.

The seventeenth century is in more than one
respect comparable to that struggle between
darkness and light as experienced in nature at
the dawn of every day. The night of the Mid-
dle Ages begins to withdraw from before the
134

Sabbatai Zwi. 135

light of the new era, but not without a struggle.
That peculiar mixture of light and darkness
which we call twilight was then hovering over
the intellectual world. In its dim light, all
facts appeared distorted, though their true forms
could already be distinguished. The press, the
influence of which was then already felt, was
yet in its infancy. It was fed with nourishment
that had grown stale by the time it reached it.
A statement, fallacious or untrue, because it
could not be rectified at once, grew more harm-
ful when spread by the press than it would
ever have been before. Journalism, that branch
of the press /which to-day is called the press,
had scarcely seen the light of the world : it
existed in an embryonic form, lacking both
hands and feet — telegraphs and railroads.
While the names of Descartes and Spinoza,
of Kepler, Galileo, and Copernicus appeared as
the messengers of the new day on the one side
of the horizon, the deep night of mysticism
was still beclouding the world ; and both Jews
and Gentiles were still held in a deep slumber
by its magnetic influence.

In one of my previous lectures, I have already
stated that Christianity in its earlier days had
been expecting the return of Jesus ; and that
this notion had been the cause of similar Mes-
sianic expectations among the Jews. These
hopes, long forgotten among Christians, were

136 Messianic Expectations.

all at once called into life again in the beginning
of the seventeenth century. The Thirty Years'
War, then raging in Germany, the rise of Prot-
estantism, the inroads which the Turks were
making upon Sieberiburgen, the discoveries
which were so surprising to the unintelligent ;
all these causes combined revived these old,
long-forgotten hopes. The Christians, both
Catholic and Protestant, all at once believed
that the world would come to an end, and that
Christ would re-appear at that auspicious mo-
ment. From some obsolete prophecies it was
figured out that the fearful catastrophe was to
occur in the year 1666.

The Jews were soon infected with the same
mania ; and the Kabbalists now discovered that
the passage in the Sohar which had predicted
the appearance of the Messiah in the beginning
of the thirteenth century had been misinter-
preted, and that the proper time for his appear-
ance was about the same as that of their Chris-
tian neighbors, namely, the year 1648. Then
their Messiah would come, riding upon a lion,
reconquer Palestine in a miraculous manner
and without arms, and establish the Kingdom
of Heaven. By that time, the Kabbalists said,
the last lot of souls would have arrived on this
sublunary world, and with it the soul of the
Messiah ;' and everything would then be in readi-
ness for the absorption by the En Sof.

Sabbatai Zwi. 137

From that time dates the pernicious custom,
which is still prevalent among the Jews of
Poland and Russia, of marrying off their chil-
dren at the early ages of from ten to fourteen
years. It was introduced in order to exhaust
the quicker the supply of unborn souls, and
thus to accelerate the arrival of the Messiah.
In Smyrna eight hundred such juvenile couples
were once married on one day. When Rabbi
Manasse stood before Oliver Cromwell and
pleaded the cause of his brethren, asking per-
mission for them to immigrate into England
and to settle upon her soil, one of his arguments
was that, after all, their sojourn would be of a
short duration, as the time was near at hand
when their Messiah would appear. This shows
that even practical men of the stamp of Rabbi
Manasse were infected with the craze and dared
to speak of it as a matter of course to the Pro-
tector of England, who in turn received this
reference to the current and popular belief in
the same spirit in which it was given.

During the war between the Turks and the
city of Venice, the commercial relations of that
city had become so unsafe that large English
and Dutch firms removed from there and estab-
lished branch offices in Smyrna. Mordachai
Zwi, a Jew of Spanish descent, who had re-
moved to the same place from the southern part
of Greece, opened a commission business there

1 38 Messianic Expectations.

representing the interest of several English
houses. His strict honesty and his clever man-
agement won for him the confidence of the
firms for which he acted, and made him a rich
man. On the 9th of the month Ab, the memo-
rial day of the destruction of Jerusalem, in the
year 1626, a boy was born to him, whom he
called Sabbatai. The child grew up to be a
handsome young man, who, both by his comeli-
ness and by his intellectual qualities, gained the
sympathies of all. He was a remarkable boy.
He would withdraw into solitudes where he
could give full swing to his imagination. He
never mingled with his fellows, nor would he
ever join in their games. For a short time he
studied Bible and Talmud ; but soon he left
these studies and was initiated into the myste-
ries of the Kabbalah. The ascetic life which
was demanded of a Kabbalist suited him ex-
tremely. He would pray and fast and meditate
and bathe at nights with such a promptness and
minuteness that before he had reached his
twentieth year he had already become the
master of a small circle of disciples. He had,
however, one peculiarity which distinguished
him from other Kabbalists and surrounded him
at the same time with a still brighter halo of
holiness. He was totally indifferent to the
other sex. Although he had married, according
to Kabbalistic usage, at an early age, and his

Sabbatai Zwi. 139

wife was very pretty, he never lived with her as
man and wife ; so that she asked for a divorce,
to which he raised no objection. With the
same coldness he afterwards treated his second
wife. His father worshipped him, and ascribed
his success in business to the influence which
his son was able to exert upon the En Sof.
This made Sabbatai conceited ; and as a Mes-
siah was expected about that time by all, it oc-
curred to liim that he and no other was that
distiriguished personage. On his twenty-second
birthday, in the year 1648, he made himself
known to a select circle of friends and disciples
as the long-expected Messiah, by pronouncing
the four-lettered name of God as it is written.
The Kabbalah had predicted that the Messiah
alone would dare to pronounce this name in the
same manner as it was pronounced before by
the high priest. When the rabbles of Smyrna
heard of it, they grew indignant ; and their col-
lege, the Beth-Din, excommunicated him and
his followers. The fact was that they loved to
dream and to talk about Kabbalistic nonsense,
to hope and to pray for a Messiah, but were not
ready to face the creations of their own imagi-
nation when they appeared before them in broad
daylight. After a quarrel which lasted for sev-
eral years, he and his disciples were exiled from
Smyrna.
The prompt action of the rabbinical college

140 Messianic Expectations.

ought to have nipped all his Messianic aspira-
tions in the bud; but it had just the opposite
effect : it stiffened his backbone. The concep-
tion of a suffering Messiah, borne and tenderly
nourished by Christianity, had crept by that time
into Jewish thought : he considered his persecu-
tion to be an essential part of his Messianic mis-
sion ; and being well supplied with funds by his
father, he scorned the interdict of the rabbini-
cal synod of Smyrna; and his illusions grew
with every new day.

It is not exactly known where he stopped
and what he did during the next fifteen years.
A few traits only have survived.' On his travels
he once met a wandering preacher who at the
same time was a copyist of note. His name
was Abraham Jachini. From him he received
a piece of old parchment, upon which the follow-
ing inscription could be seen, in old-fashioned
Hebrew characters : " I, Abraham, was impris-
oned in a cave for forty years, when I heard a
voice saying. In the year 5386 of the world
(that is, 1626) a son shall be born whose name
shall be Sabbatai. He shall humble the
dragon : he is the true Messiah : and he shall
wage war without arms."

It is not known whether this piece of pen-
manship had been made to order, or whether
Jachini, who had heard of Sabbatai's assump-
tion, had written it for the sake of mystifying

Sabbatai Zwi. 141

the mystifier. Sabbatai accepted the document
as genuine, preserved it, and proved by it his mis-
sion. In the year 1653 we find him in Salonica
surrounded by a host of admirers. Here he
prepared a peculiar farce. He celebrated his
wedding with a scroll of the law such as you
can see in any Jewish synagogue. On this oc-
casion he proclaimed himself as the Messiah, —
and, mark me well, as the son of the En Sof,
— who by order of his father was to marry the
law, the daughter of heaven. This scene, car-
ried out with theatrical pomp, so enraged the
sober part of the Jewish population of Salonica
that he was driven ignominiously from that
place.

He then travelled through Greece ; but the
congregations, which had heard of his ex-
communication and his vagaries, would not
allow him to stay with them. Strange as it
may appear, all these difficulties tended to in-
crease his presumption and to raise his cour-
age. From there he went to Egypt. In the
capital, Cairo, there lived at that' time a
wealthy Israelite. He held the highest office
in the land ; for he had leased the revenues
and taxes of all Egypt. Raphael Joseph
Chelibi was as charitable as he was rich, and
as credulous and superstitious in matters of
religion as he was shrewd in business affairs.
Fifty Kabbalists were supported by him year

142 Messianic Expectations.

in and year out ; and whosoever was in want
appealed to him. He was the Rothschild of
his time. While he was transacting an im-
rnense business, he fasted and prayed and
chastised himself with a lash made of wire, all
for the sake of hastening the advent of the
Messiah by his ascetic life. Sabbatai initiated
him into his secrets, and made a faithful friend
of him. In 1663 he went to Jerusalem; as it
seems without any reason, and for no purpose
whatsoever. As the year 1666 was approach-
ing, he probably believed that his presence
might be needed in the Holy City at that event-
ful time, and that perhaps some miracle would
occur in his behalf upon the sacred soil of Pales-
tine. But though he observed the most rigor-
ous asceticism, though he bathed in the Jordan
river, and visited the graves of the patriarchs,
no miracle occurred. His circle of admirers
even did not widen to any extent ; when all of
a sudden an accident happened which made
him famous at once. An oppressive tax had
been imposed by the Pasha upon the Jews of
Palestine, which they were unable to pay.
They were threatened with extermination if
the money should not be paid at the appointed
time. Sabbatai offered his services as a mes-
senger to the charitable Raphael Joseph in
Cairo. His embassy, as could be expected,
was crowned with success ; for the charitable

Sabbatai Zwi. 143

gentleman subscribed the amount which was
needed ; which, however, was attributed to the
influence of Sabbatai, the Messiah, upon Ra-
phael. But he obtained even another oppor-
tunity to prove his Messiahship.

In far-off Poland a whole Jewish colony had
been butchered years before by the Cossacks.
One little girl only had been saved, by accident.
She had been found the next day by a benevo-
lent person half starved and almost frozen to
death, who gave her up to the sisters of a neigh-
boring nunnery. Here she grew up to be a
maiden of rare beauty ; and though she had
been instructed in the tenets of the Christian
religion, she still remained, so she said, a Jewess
at heart. One night this girl was found by
some Israelites almost naked on their burial
place. She claimed that the spirit of her
father had taken her in the stillness of the
night and carried her through the air from the
cloister to this place. He had told her that
she was to become the bride of the Messiah.
To the astonished Jewish women she even
showed the finger-marks which her father's
spirit had left on her body. The Jews, being
afraid to get into trouble for her sake, did not
investigate the matter, but sent her to Amster-
dam, where, she said, she had a brother. She
remained for a few years in Amsterdam ; then
went to Frankfort-on-the-Main, and later to

144 Messianic Expectations.

Livorno, always claiming that she was to be the
bride of the Messiah. She did not, however,
lead such a life as would be becoming to such a
distinguished person ; for in all these cities she
bore an ill name. Whenever the inconsistency
of her behaviour was shown to her, she would
say that because she was to become the wife of
the Messiah her irregularities had been allowed
to her by divine revelation. The story of her
adventures had reached Cairo ; and Sabbatai at
once corroborated her story, claiming^ that he
had been waiting for her appearance as she had
for his. He sent for her, and in the house of
the generous Raphael their nuptials were con-
summated in gorgeous style. This marriage
made him at once a Messiah, and he justified his
queer action by referring to the prophet Hosea,
who likewise had been ordered by God to marry
a lewd woman. His fame spread, and his
glory was still increased by an addition of a few
satellites who were pleased to shine by his side.
A Kabbalist called Nathan Ghazati assumed
the role of the prophet Elijah, who was to be
the forerunner of the Messiah, and two other
Kabbalists, Sabbatai Raphael and Mathatias
Bloch, travelled for him, preached in his name,
and proclaimed him as the' true Messiah. About
this time Sabbatai began to bring system into
his enterprise. He kept a regular court, in
which Sarah figured as queen. He withdrew

Sabbatai Zwi. 145

himself from the gaze of the populace, and
appeared only on high festive occasions in
public. He employed a private secretary, who
sent official documents in the name of the
Messiah to all Jewish congregations in Europe,
Asia, and Africa. He now returned to his
native city, entered it triumphantly ; and on
the New Year's day, 1665, he proclaimed him-
self publicly in the synagogue of Smyrna by
the sound of the Shofar as the long-expected
Messiah. The enthusiasm soon developed into
a craze. Men, women, and children began to
prophesy : miracles occurred every day and all
over the country, and the mania spread like wild-
fire. In Holland, England, Germany, and Poland,
wherever a Jew lived, whom the glad tidings of
the appearance of the Messiah reached, the
wildest hopes arose : business was neglected ;
estates sold out ; and delegates loaded with
money were despatched to the court of the
Messiah. The greater the number of these
legations grew, the greater appeared the dignity
of the Messiah ; and as every delegate could
truthfully report the conflux of people, and the
magnificence of the court, and as these reports
of unbiassed eye-witnesses could not be doubted,
the mania spread wider and wider, and the
Messianic fever grew more intense. A banker
in Amsterdam who had uttered some irreverent
remarks about the Messiah suddenly fell down

146 Messianic Expectations.

dead, and the belief of the credulous crowd in
the miraculous and far-reaching power of the
Messiah could never be shaken after this acci-
dent. In England bets were made for and
against him, and the betting stood one hundred
to ten in his favor. Heinrich Oldenburg, a
German scholar of great renown, did not know
what to make of it, and predicted a great
change in all public affairs. Even Spinoza, the
Pantheist, acknowledged the possibility that
the Divinity might again have chosen Israel as
the bearer of the moral law. Christians began
to doubt their own religion. If Sabbatai was
the true Messiah, as he then appeared to- be,
what was Jesus of Nazareth.' Many^Christians
turned Jews in order to be on the safe side in
1666.

There was only one man at that time who
remained sober in the general delusion. Rabbi
Jacob Sasportas of Hamburg raised his voice of
warning, which, however, was drowned in the
frantic turmoil of that peculiar time.

If Sabbatai had been a man of some sense, if
he had possessed some character and some
power of will, he could have made something
out of the feverish enthusiasm which then had
taken hold of everybody ; but he was no man of
ability or of genius, he was a self-conceited im-
postor. He did nothing ; he lived in dulce jubilo
from day to day, waiting for a miracle. He

Sabbatai Zwi. 147

divided the world among his followers. To one
of his friends he gave Poland, to another Ger-
many, and Raphael Joseph Chelibi received
Egypt for his share. So firm was the belief of
his deluded followers in him that they would not
sell their shares for enormous sums of money,
which, in fact, were offered to them. He pre-
tended to know the souls which inhabited their
bodies. One of his friends was the soul of
King Solomon, another that of King Joas. He
furthermore changed the Jewish holidays ; he
made the ninth of Ab, • his birthday, a day of
rejoicing, and did away with the day of Atone-
ment. He gave himself out finally as the incar-
nation of the En Sof ; that is, in plain words,
he said he was God himself.

The swindle had now lasted long enough in
Smyrna; and the Sultan, or rather his vizier,
Achmed Kopriti, thought it high time to see to
it. Sabbatai was summoned to appear before
the Sultan, in Constantinople. At the beginning
of the year 1666, he set sail for that city. After
a stormy voyage, he landed near the Golden
Horn, and was immediately imprisoned by the
Turkish authorities. When questioned about
his Messianic pretensions, the coward denied
them, and said he was merely a Jewish rabbi
who had been delegated to collect alms for
Jerusalem. Kopriti, who at that time was in
need of Jewish money for the wars which he

148 Messianic Expectations.

was waging with several European ' powers, and
who had the good sense of not making a martyr
of a man who was a harmless impostor, gave
him the small castle of Abydos as his place of
residence, where he was to be kept as a prisoner
of state, under guard of a Turkish officer. The
castle now became a second Mecca. From all
parts of Europe pilgrims arrived ; and a rain of
gold was showered over the whole neighbor-
hood. The leniency with which the Sultan
treated him was interpreted by the admirers of
Sabbatai to mean that he was powerless to harm
the Messiah, who had dared to approach him
unarmed and unaided by an army. The belief
spread that the Sultan would soon abdicate in
Sabbatai's favor ; and it almost seems as if
Sabbatai himself had believed in his super-
natural power. His impudence, however, led to
his early downfall. Ambassadors had come
from the interior of Poland to ascertain the
truth of the Messianic rumor. They told him
that in their own country a man had predicted
the coming of a Messiah, but had named another
person. Sabbatai haughtily ordered these dele-
gates to send that man to him. Nehemia
Cohen, the Polish prophet, obeyed the order,
and appeared before him. After a long conver-
sation which he held with the Messiah, he
denounced him as an impostor. Sabbatai's fol-
lowers, to avenge the insult, attempted to mur-

Sabbatai Zxvi. 149

der Nehemia, who, however, escaped from their
hands, went to Constantinople, turned Moham-
medan, betrayed to the Sultan the secrets of the
Messiah, and gave him advice how to put down
the excitement at once without making a mar-
tyr of the swindler. Then he escaped from
Constantinople, returned to Poland, became
again a conscientious Jew, and vanished from
the public as suddenly as he had appeared.

The Sultan, acting on the advice of Nehemia,
demanded of Sabtatai a token of his Messiah-
ship. He would shoot three bullets at him at
close range. If he should remain unhurt, he
would acknowledge him as the Messiah ; if not,
he should be killed at once, if the bullets had
not yet finished him.

Sabbatai, as could be expected, most respect-
fully declined the honor of being used as a
target for the royal rifle-practice, and instead
turned Mohammedan. He took the name of
Mehmed Effendi, and received a good salaried
office at the court of the Sultan in exchange.
The Jews throughout the Ottoman Empire were
punished with a heavy taxation ; and Sabbatai
was used as a tool to convert them to the reli-
gion of Mohammed. When, after some years, he
was found out to be rather lax in his devotion
to his new religion, he was banished to a far-off
village, where he died unnoticed and in obscu-
rity, in the year 1676.

1 50 Messianic Expectations.

But the mania of which he had been the ex-
ponent and the cause did not die as soon. His
admirers could not beheve, and would not be-
lieve, that the Messiah had betrayed them.
They announced the dangerous doctrine that it
was allowable to change the form of religion ;
and thousands of Jews, who had lost their prop-
erty during the mania, and were now ridiculed
into the bargain, after the bubble had burst,
turned Christians or Mohammedans. Others
were still expecting the return of Sabbatai ;
they still clung to the, Kabbalistic nonsense,
which, however, had now lost forever its former
strength.

After this Messianic failure. Messianic hopes
fell to the freezing-point. They were upheld
theoretically, they found expression in prayers,
they were uttered mechanically with the lips ;
but they were discarded practically, and found
no longer an echo in the hearts of our ances-
tors.

This era of mysticism was the last struggle
between darkness and light. The sun of reason
rose higher and higher, and all these spectres
vanished from before it. Kabbalism, too, had
to go. Mendelssohn and his contemporaries
destroyed it with their logic. Even Christianity
changed its front. The American and French
Revolutions gave freedom to the Jews, and
offered them full citizenship, which so long had

Sabbatai Zwi. 151

been denied to them; and with this offer, not
only their homesickness, — their yearning after
a land of their own, — vanished, .but also all
Messianic hopes passed quietly away.

At the very same moment when the old bell-
man's grandson shouted up to the belfry, " Ring,
ring, grandpa ! Oh, ring for liberty ! " and when
the old state-house bell of Philadelphia spread
with its metal tongue the news that the United
States had declared their independence, the
Messianic idea heaved its last sigh. At that
auspicious moment its soul passed away, and
what was left of it was a lifeless corpse, which
has for some time lain in state, but which now
is buried for good.

X.

CONCLUSION.

'HE human mind is the manifestation of
God in man. It is as infinite as is the
source from which it sprang. Though
chained to a body of clay, it rises abov^
space and extends beyond time. Time and
space, the limitations of the body, cannot im-
prison the mind. Carried by the wings of
imagination, we can roam not only through all
the periods of past history but also through all
the ages which are still to come. In an instant
we can travel thousands of miles ; and with-
out experiencing any unpleasant sensation we
can change our residence from the frigid north
pole to the torrid equator.

The moments when our mind, escaping
from the prison-cell of the body, roams through
the infinitudes of time and space are the
happiest in its earthly existence : they are
marred only by the thought that it must soon
return into the cage, and exhaust itself again in
its daily work, in the treadmill of reality.
152

Conclusion. 153

In a series of these mental excursions we have
followed the trail which an idea, the Messianic
idea, has left upon earth from the time of its
inception to that of its demise.

Let us now draw the conclusions, now that
all the evidence has been brought in.

We have found, first of all, that the Messianic
expectations of the Israelites assumed shape
not merely once, but several times, and in
different historical periods ; a fact which is
not known to the public in general. Four or
five men, from out a large company, have
gained renown as Messiahs : Jesus of Nazareth,
Bar Kochba, Rubeni, Molcho, and Sabbatai
Zwi. Their careers varied in particulars, but
there is an astonishing resemblance to be found
in the main features of their lives. The early
history of all of them is shrouded in darkness.
Like the gods in Greek mythology, they
step forth suddenly out of the mist of a cloud.
They appear, and nobody knows whence they
come. After a life of short duration they all
disappear in a similar manner. With the
exception of the last one, none of them died a
natural death. Jesus died despairingly on the
cross ; Bar Kochba heroically on the battle-
field ; Molcho was roasted alive ; Rubeni died
in a dungeon ; and Sabbatai Zwi died ignomini-
ously in exile. None of them reached an ad-
vanced age. Sabbatai, the oldest of them, died

1-54 Messianic Expectations.

at the age of forty-one years ; Solomon Molcho,
the youngest, at thirty-one. Jesus is said to
have died at the age of thirty-three years. Bar
Kochba's age cannot be ascertained ; but be
must have died a young man. None of them,
with the exception of Sabbatai, was married,
and none of them left children.

Neither was any one of them a creative genius.
They never dominated their time : on the con-
trary, they were carried away with the current.
They never moved the masses; they rode on
the crest of the popular wave. They were
merely the supply to a public demand. Their
Messianic assumptions, sincere or hypocritical,
became possible only on account of a popular
hope in the appearance of such a person. None
of them appeared at a time of national pros-
perity ; they all without exception stepped upon
the stage in times of calamity. They could
grow only upon ground fertilized by misery.
Whenever the national wretchedness had be-
come unbearable, whenever the spirit of the
people had become so depressed that they
despaired of themselves, the hope sprang up
that help must come from outside, from aboye :
that a man must appear who would improve
their condition. But at suc-h times of calamity
the human judgm'ent becomes biassed, and the
reasoning powers lose their normal strength.
A drowning man will cling to a straw : so a

Conclusion. 155

nation in despair will cling to the most childish
hopes.

None of the Messiahs ever improved the
state of affairs : on the contrary, they all left
the nation in a still greater misery than they had
found it. This, too, is a cause why so very little
is known of any of them. Had they lived in
times of prosperity, when their actions could
have been judged in calmness ; had they been
able to improve the condition of their friends,
morally or materially, we should have heard
much more of them. The facts would have
been sifted ; and we should have received them
in an authentic form. But the hardship of their
times was so great that nobody thought of fixing
dates or of establishing a historical fame for
them ; and after the clouds had passed away it
was too late to collect the material and to clear
the truth from fiction.

The Messianic idea is the child of Judaism
thus far only, that during the time when our
ancestors formed a small nation and their politi-
cal existence was threatened with extinction by
mighty oppressors, they hoped that a man would
appear among them who would liberate them
from the yoke of the foreigner and restore
their national independence. After the defeat
of Bar Kochba, when the last glimmer of that
hope was extinguished, the child naturally died ;
but Christianity the daughter, be it to console

156 Messianic Expectations.

her mourning mother or be it for a more selfish
reason, exchanged the dead body for that of
another child, to which she herself had given
birth. This grandchild, sickly as it was, was by
mistake nourished by its grandmother thereafter
until now this child died too. All Messianic
expectations which were indulged in by the
Jews after Bar Kochba were un-Jewish, and
were excusable only on the plea of homesick-
ness, from which our ancestors suffered for sev-
enteen hundred years, owing to the inexcusable
treatment which they received from the hands
of their prejudiced neighbors.

I can understand Messianic vagaries of a
political character, I can understand that a
nation oppressed by a mighty foe,' and unable to
break the yoke by its own efforts, experiences a
certain consolation in the hope that some one
will come and liberate it ; but after a people
has lost its national existence, after its children
have been scattered all over the earth, and have
lived as citizens of other countries, for almost
two thousand years, it is absurd even to think
of a national restoration. I fail to see the ben-
efit which the Jews would derive from the re-
establishment of a Jewish commonwealth. The
mere attempt to realize such fantastic hopes
would be followed by evil consequences. Pal-
estine, to the possession of which we are said
to be entitled, is not as large as Massachusetts :

Conclusion. 157

it could hold two or three millions of inhabitants.
What, now, would become of the seven millions
of Jews which could not find room therein ?
Furthermore, in what respect would our con-
dition be improved ? Could a Messiah uphold
our civil rights better than President Cleveland
did in his first message ? Behold the dependent
position of the small Danubian countries ;
behold how these princes are mere pUppets in
the hands of their stronger neighbors, and
how the resources of these countries are squan-
dered in wars which will never benefit them ;
behold these conditions, which would be our
own, and then compare them with our standing
as free citizens of this free republic. Do we
not share the legislative power with our fellow-
citizens .' Do we not hold the ballot in our
hands .' Do not Israelites hold offices in the
municipal and national government .■' Are not
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness granted
to us as well as to any other citizens of this
country 1

It is told of Julius Caesar that he once dis-
played his ambition by saying he had rather be
the first magistrate in a small village of Gaul
than the second in rank in Rome. I say, and
every intelligent American Israelite will support
me, that we would rather be plain citizens of the
United Stafes of America than the leading states-
men of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine.

158 Messianic Expectations.

Two important points, however, yet remain
to be answered. One is generally brought for-
ward by our Christian friends ; the other by
our co-religionists.

Our Christian friends claim that we are mis-
taken in tracing the Messianic expectations of
the Jewish nation to a political basis. Although
they concede that at the time of Jesus the
Israelites may have expected a politician or a
soldier as their liberator, they uphold the
theory that such a Messiah was not needed :
that the mission of a Messiah is not a local
one, but that it is universal. The Jews, they
say, in their eagerness for national redemption,
overlooked the fact that the messenger of God
had come to redeem the whole world.

Now, in order to show that we are not hasty
in our conclusions, that we feel keenly the
gravity of this question, and that we are willing
to handle it with all possible care and tender-
ness, let us suppose for a moment that the
Christian sources are authentic : let us sup-
pose that our Christian friends of to-day do
know better what our ancestors needed eighteen
hundred years ago than they did themselves : let
us suppose that the gospels were written by
Jewish eye-witnesses, and were never tampered
with by copyists ; and that the life, the words,
and the deeds, of Jesus are correctly repre-
sented therein. Let us furthermore suppose

Conclusion. 159

that it was his mission to redeem the whole
world not politically, but from its sins and
iniquities.

Starting from this supposition, are we not
justified in expecting of such a divine mes-
senger that first of all he would reveal to the
world new laws, better than the former ones,
new doctrines, superior to those to which the
people adhered before? Now, were the utter-
ances of Jesus new ? A very large part of
what he is reported to have said had been
said before him : and he repeated it. Many
and many of his teachings can be traced to
previous Jewish sources. What he taught was
Judaism plain and unalloyed. Not one para-
graph in his sermon on the mount contains
anything that could have been new to his
hearers. He was not even a reformer ; for he
is reported to have said distinctly that he was
not come to change or to abolish the Mosaic
law. Not one attempt was made by him to es-
tablish a new religion or to lay down a plan for
the redemption of the world. Although he
does not conceal the traces of mysticism which
his connection with the Essenes had left upon
him, he lived and died a conscientious Jew ;
and none of his followers derived from him the
least right to deviate from the example which
he had given to them. It is a fact conceded by
our Christian friends that he did not realize the

i6o Messianic Expectations.

hopes of his contemporaries, not even those of
his disciples ; that he did not improve the con-
dition of his nation, either by his life or by his
death. But did he save the world ? Did he
remove sin ? Has humanity become perfect
through him?

Think of the barbarism of the Middle Ages ;
think of the paganization of Christianity ; think
of the atrocities which have been perpetrated
in his name ; the cruelties which have been
committed for his glorification ; the wars which
have been waged for the propagation of the
religion named after him. Observe human
passions still impeding the path of virtue : read
the list of crimes committed every day ; and
then say that the world has been redeemed
of all evils : speak it out unblushingly, if you
can, that sin has been removed and that hu-
manity has become perfect since the time of
his death. The best proof that the alleged
Messiahship of Jesus was a failure on earth is
that its result, the predicted redemption of the
world, has been removed to heaven, to spheres
of which we have no knowledge whatsoever.
Whatever our fate may be after death, be it
immortality or annihilation, it is in vain to go
into any controversy about it, as none of the
disputants know the least thing about it. I
wish, however, with all my heart, that the
hopes of our Christian friends in regard to the

Conclusion. i6i

soul-saving ^gualities of their faith may be real-
ized in what they call heaven, as completely
they have so far been a failure on earth.

If mankind has advanced in knowledge, if the
standard of morality has been raised, such has
not been the work of Jesus, nor that of Chris-
tianity alone. Thousands of good and noble
men and women, and all religions on earth,
from superstitious fetishism to radical agnos-
ticism, have worked together for that end. If
we have progressed, if humanity is better to-day
than it ever was before, if a better sense of jus-
tice prevails, if the cruelties of war have been
mitigated, if crimes have been suppressed to
some extent, we must not fail to consider the
enormous influence of the host of inventors who
have discovered the secrets of nature, and have
made its powers the obedient servants of man.
The inventors of steam-power, of electricity, of
gaslight, of machinery, of the printing-press,
— they have been among the real saviors of
humanity ; for they have removed, though in-
directly, more sins than the combined efforts
of all I religions have been able to weed out.
They have stormed and broken down the barri-
ers of caste and creed ; they have wrenched
the sceptre from the hands of despots, both
secular and spiritual, and have caused the es-
tablishment of the right of every individual to
participate in the government of his own affairs.

1 62 Messianic Expectations.

They have alleviated the wrongs of life, so that
the poor of to-day is a wealthy man compared
with the poor of the past. Their rails and
electric wires have tied humanity into one
large community, and through their agency
all human beings have learned to regard one
another as brethren, and to share the joys
and woes of their fellow-beings from pole to
pole.

It is a fallacy to regard the past as the time
when people were better, nobler, happier, than
they are to-day ; it is a mistake to seek for
ideals only in the past, after which to shape our
conduct in the present. Not disregarding filial
devotion which is due to a parent, I claim that
we are better and happier than were our ances-
tors, and that future generations will be still
better and happier than we are. The ideal of
the present man ought to be the man of the
future, not the man of the past.

Thus the Messianic idea of universal redemp-
tion, brought forward by Christianity, collapses.
Jesus has not been the savior of his nation ;
and, as far as the last eighteen hundred years
have proven, he has not saved the world. Our
ancestors, — provided they had known of him, —
could not accept him as a national Messiah, be-
cause he did not tally with their expectations ;
and we cannot now or ever accept him as a uni-
versal Messiah, as the savior of the world, be-

Conclusion. 163

cause he is not the ideal which we have to-day
of such a person.

The other point raised by our co-religionists,
who, as it seems, only for the sake of opposition,
will not concede that the Messianic idea is dead
and has been finally buried with Sir Moses Mon-
tefiore, is of apparently still greater importance
than that which I have discussed just now.

The preservation of Israel, they say, would
be a waste of providential care : the sacrifices
which our ancestors have made upon the altar
of their religion, the miseries which they have
patiently endured, the blood which they have
spilled, would all be in vain, if our cause should
not finally triumph ; if in the end we should not
only regain a political independence, but even
become the aristocracy of the world. The
whole drama would close abruptly without the
grand finale in which our patience and endu-
rance should be rewarded.

There appears to be some logic in this point ;
but appearances frequently deceive. First of
all, it is absurd to speak of a waste of providen-
tial care. There is no waste in nature nor in
the whole government of the universe. The
term " waste " is applicable only to human
affairs. The purpose for which a being is
preserved is not always that which we in
our human blindness expect. We may call it
as well a waste of providential care if an oak

i64~ Messianic Expectations,

tree that had been growing for a thousand
years, and had withstood the storms of ages, is
consumed by a forest fire instead of being sawed
into beams and boards, and used for building
purposes.

The sacrifices which our ancestors have
made, and the miseries which they have en-
dured, were made and endured by them for
their own sake, and not for the sake of the
future. They could not submit to the views
which another religion wished to press upon
them ; and, therefore, they rather suffered than
yield. We would do the same to-day ; and
there is no religious sect which has not done
the same. It is a poor argument to say that
we must be Jews, and suffer humiliations of all
kinds, merely because our parents have been
Jews, or because our great-grandchildren will
sometime receive the reward for our patience
and endurance. We cling to Judaism because
that religion suits us best ; because it answers
all our purposes. We transmit this religion to
our children not for the sake of aiding God in
the accomplishment of some purpose, but be-
cause we think they will be as happy in this
religion as we have been, are, and shall ever
be ; that they will become noble members of
the human society by adhering to its principles.
If a man is not sincerely a Jew, if he does not
firmly hold that Judaism rests upon a solid foun-

Conclusion. 165

dation, he commits a wrong if he hypocritically
instils into his children principles which he does
not subscribe to himself ; and if he should think
that another creed than the one he has inherited
is better and more likely to make him or his
children better and nobler, he ought to embrace
it, the sooner the better.

There is an inconsistency in these Messianic
hopes. On the one hand, it is expected of the
Messiah to introduce a government of peace and
equality, a time when all shall do the good for
the sake of doing good ; when all passions shall
be silenced, when love shall unite all humanity
in one great brotherhood, and when the same
God shall rule over a happy world. On the
other hand, however, it is hoped that there
would be some distinction after all; namely,
that we should be raised to the highest plane,
that our opinions should prevail, that our God
should be tke God. If the rest should not be
inclined to acknowledge our superiority, then,
of course, we should regret it exceedingly if we
were compelled to make them submissive by
some sort of punishment. It may be a pleasing
play of our imagination to dream of a time when
we could speak to our fellow-citizens somewhat
in the following strain : You have never be-
lieved that we were right ; yoii have never been
ready to grant us the position to which we were
entitled. Now, the tables are turned ; now, we

1 66 Messianic Expectations.

are the masters : but we shall not pay you in the
same coin ; we shall be satisfied with the mere
acknowledgment of our superiority over you.
Such dreams may gratify our vanity ; but they
are idle. Those who expect to indulge in such
selfish vanities will be greatly disappointed. If
it should ever come to pass that the religious
thoughts of mankind became uniform, you may
rest assured that at such a time none of the
present religious systems would be prevalent.
The religion of the future will be neither spe-
cifically Jewish nor Christian nor Mohammedan.
It will be an entirely new system, in which the
immortal parts of all the present religions will
be represented, but at the same time so equally
balanced that none will dare to claim superior-
ity. A Messianic period with one of the pres-
ent religious systems dominating is an absurdity,'
and a contradiction of itself.

We may, however, boast, if boast we must,
that, as Christianity and Mohammedanism are
the daughters of Judaism, and their vital parts
are essentially Jewish, our religion will thus both
directly and indirectly help to shape the religion
of the future. We may furthermore maintain, —
if this can add to our happiness, — that Judaism,
on account of its flexibility and its rationalism,
will flow with greater ease than any other of the
present religious systems into the religion of the
future, and thus become its mainstay.

Conclusion. 167

With these explanations I should like to close
my researches; but I cannot dismiss the sub-
ject without answering one more question, which
has frequently been asked of late by my hear-
ers, both Jews and Gentiles, — the question,
What is Judaism ? It would take another course,
of at least ten lectures, should I endeavor to
solve this question otherwise than metaphori-
cally. You must, therefore, be satisfied with a
figurative explanation.

Fables tell of a bird, of great beauty, which is
so rare that only one specimen of its race exists
on earth, and which is neither male nor female.
The Phoenix is said to live to a very old age ;
but when he feels that death is near, he lines
his nest with all kinds of odorous plants, sets
fire to it, and burns himself with it. Out of
the ashes, however, rises a new bird, young,
vigorous, and still more beautiful than was his
ancestor.

Judaism is such a phoenix. It is the con-
stantly changing but ever living religion of hu-
manity.

Whenever it feels that a change is needed,
that its body has outlived its usefulness, it sets
fire to its earthly environment ; and, purified
by the flames, it rises from the ashes in a new
guise, but chanting the same old song, —

There is but one God, and all human beings
are brethren.

1 68 Messianic Expectations.

NOTE,

It is quite natural and therefore pardonable
in a reader of these ten lectures to ask the fol-
lowing questions : —

1. Does the author represent therein what
all Israelites think of the Bible, of the Messiah,
and of the hope in a return to Palestine ?

2. If not, does he voice the opinion of at
least a small number of Israelites ? or

3. Does he stand all alone by himself and un-
supported by any of his brethren, merely ex-
pressing his own individual views on these
topics ?

The author most decidedly disclaims to speak
in behalf of all Israelites collectively ; though
he feels confident that most of his views are
shared by all intelligent American Israelites.
Tp ascertain their number would be a rather
difficult task, because cultured people, as a rule,
do not make a public display of their religious
opinions.

Supposing, however, that the number of his
supporters is a small one, that they form only
an infinitesimal fraction of the whole Jewish
population, what does it matter? Does not
one intelligent, cultured person who sides with

Note. • 169

him more than outbalance a host of unintelli-
gent, unlearned, and superstitious people who
may rise in opposition to his declarations?

As a proof, merely, that he does not stand
entirely alone and unsupported, he has added
the following two lectures to the previous ten,
from which the reader will learn that not. an
inconsiderable number of rabbles, who are re-
nowned both for their profound scholarship and
their high moral character, and who oificiate in
the largest and most celebrated Jewish congre-
gations in America, have recently agreed upon
a platform of principles every plank of which
tallies exactly with the views expressed by the
author.

The two lectures on " The Pittsburg Confer-
ence " will, therefore, prove interesting reading,
and sp^k for themselves.

XI.

THE PITTSBURG CONFERENCE: ITS CAUSES.

y rPON the urgent solicitation of the Rev.
I®J Dr. Kohler, of New York city, about six-
teen rabbies, all belonging to the re-
formed wing of Judaism, assembled four weeks
ago in Pittsburg, Penn. ; and after a lively de-
bate, they passed, without one dissenting vote,
a set of resolutions which they termed a declara-
tion of principles.

The learned gentlemen had come to the
meeting of their own free will and accord.; they
had paid their own expenses : they had not
been sent by their congregations or by any
other body of Israelites to represent their views,
and their utterances were therefore the utter-
ances of private individuals, who could claim no
other authority for them save that which sound
judgment, intelligently and sincerely exercised,
always carries with it.

The proceedings of the meeting were spread
with electric rapidity all over the country ; and
the principles declared by them are now running
the gauntlet of public criticism.
170

The Pittsburg Conferencs. 171

It matters little in what proportion the number
of rabbies who assembled in Pittsburg stands to
the number of Jewish congregations in America :
it matters little whether these gentlemen voice
the sentiment of the members of their several
congregations : it matters little whether they are
old or young, or whether they come from the
East or the West ; their declaration of principles
is entitled to the attention of every intelligent
American Israelite.

Whenever a number of men, in open assembly,
boldly assert an opinion which runs counter to
current ideas, but which impresses us with the
sincerity of their purpose and the purity of
their motives, we are in duty bound to give
them a hearing. Experience ought to have
taught us that a new truth never was cham-
pioned by the many, but by the few, and that
the great number of devotees is not always a
true criterion of the worthiness of a cause. We
ought to have learned by this time to be the
more careful about condemning a measure the
greater the opposition is which rises against it.
The very greatness of that opposition is the
best proof that something of vast importance
must be hidden in the measure, calling for it.
Men do not use heavy artillery to demolish
houses built of cards. The bomb-shells which
so far have been fired at the results of the con-
ference, by the orthodox press or by over-zealous

172 Messianic Expectations.

pulpit orators, are sufficient proof that the prin-
ciples declared at Pittsburg are not made of
pasteboard, but of solid masonry.

An assembly of sixteen intelligent men, who
are all highly educated and well versed in the
history of Judaism ; who all have made theology
the study of their lives ; who all are supposed
to represent the views held by the most promi-
nent congregations of America, — such an as-
sembly, be it authorized or unauthorized, carries
some weight at least with it. The views which
these gentlemen so freely expressed in their
declaration of principles ought, therefore, to be
studied by every conscientious Israelite, and
neither be judged in an angry mood nor con-
demned in haste.

Although personally I am ready to subscribe
to every paragraph of the Pittsburg platform,
and although I feel now extremely sorry that
circumstances over which I had no control pre-
vented me from being present at that momen-
tous meeting, I do not wish you to be biassed in
your decision by me or anybody else, nor to
look at only one side of the shield.

It becomes my duty to lay the whole matter
before you, and to discuss it with all possible
impartiality; but it is as well your duty to
grant to such an important matter some of
your leisure time, to think about it, and to
discuss it in the circles of your friends. If you

The Pittsburg Conference. 1 73

should become convinced of the timeliness and
the soundness of the principles declared by
the conference, you ought to ratify them, to
strengthen the cause morally by your approval,
and to encourage the bold leaders of the
movement by your acclamation : if, on the
other hand, you should detect the least fallacy,
the least inconsistency, in them, you ought to
denounce them openly; but we should both
grossly neglect our duty, you as members of
this congregation and I as its leader, should we
pass with indifference or in silence over a
measure which cuts so deeply into the flesh,
and to the very bone of what some call Judaism ;
and which may in course of time revolutionize
the whole structure of our religion.

It may appear to many that the Pittsburg
Conference and the subsequent declaration
of principles was an unnecessary movement,
premature, and entirely uncalled-for. Nobody
had invited these rabbles, or urged them to
formulate their platform : apparently, there was
no reason whatsoever for their meeting, or for
their agressive policy : apparently, in the very
midst of peace they have raised the battle-cry,
and have fired the first shot over the peacefully
slumbering Jewish communities. Apparently,
the platform resolved upon is a novelty, which
is expected to produce a desirable effect.

But the Pittsburg Conference is not a cause.

174 Messianic Expectations.

which is to produce an effect : on the contrary,
it is an effect, which had been produced by a
cause. It is not an uncalled-for measure : oh
the contrary, the members of the conference
were forced into it by the pressure of their
consciences. The hypocrisy and inconsistency
of the present state of religious affairs had be-
come too great for them to be borne any longer.
For years the most prominent of these gentle-
men had in vain endeavored to reconcile the
past with the present, to patch up the outworn
religious garment, and to fit it to a body which
had outgrown it. No soonor had they stretched
it on the one side when it shrank on the other:
no sooner had they mended it in one place
when it burst open somewhere else. They
finally came to the conclusion that a new gar-
ment was - heeded ; and therefore they cast
away the old shreds.

A flash of lightning is the discharge of a
quantity of electricity which has been accumu-
lating in the clouds for some time : thus is the
Pittsburg Conference merely a discharge of
new thought which had been silently growing
and ripening in the minds of people during the
last fifty years.

Before, therefore, we enter upon a discussion
of the actual work of the conference, before we
take up the declaration of principles in para-
graphical order, I consider it of the greatest

The Pittsburg Conference. ' 175

importance to acquaint you with the causes
which have produced such an astonishing
result, and to disclose to you a few glimpses
of the history of American Judaism ; a history
which is yet too young to have found a historian.

Every species of plant is subdivided into
families, which, though they are alike in their
main features, differ from one another in minor
points. This difference in the size of the
foliage, in the color and the odor of the blos-
som, is sometimes caused by climatic influences.
The same law of nature prevails . in the animal
kingdom. A similar one holds good in the
realms of thought and religion. The highest
productions of the human mind are not exempt
from it. Every religion is influenced not only
by the political and social condition of its ad-
herents, but by the very climate in which it lives.
The very same religion assumes a different
form in different countries. Both Catholicism
and Protestantism have a far different appear-
ance in northern and southern countries ; upon
European and upon American soil.

This law of nature once known and qualified,
it will be easily understood why Judaism has
been divided into so many families ; why the
Portuguese Jew differs so widely from the
German, the German again from the Polish,
English, or Dutch Jew. It will be easily under-
stood to be quite natural that a new kind of

176 - Messidnic Expectations.

Judaism must spring up upon Americaij soil,
which, though it may carry all the marks of
the species, may still differ widely from the
other families in its structure.

The seed of Judaism which had been brought
across the ocean to the shores of this continent
found a soil here far different from that upon
which it had been accustomed to grow. Take
a plant which you have kept in a vase of sand
and in a dark cellar, and transfer it to the
fertile ground of a garden, where light and air
and moisture are to be had in abundance ; and
you will soon observe a marked change in its
structure and foliage ; and after a few genera-
tions it will differ widely from its prototype.

The time when Judaism was transplanted to
American soil will in the future be considered
a turning-point in its history. At the most
favorable periods of its existence it had never
been more than a tolerated creed. In the
most enlightened and humane countries of
Europe, Asia, and Africa, our ancestors had
been only tolerated ; and it had been only
tolerance for which they had dared to beg. In
no country of the world have they ever been
embraced by the general legislation : from the
time of the Roman Caesars to this very day
they have stood under separate laws, which
were extended, contracted, or annulled, accord-
ing to the favor or disfiavor which they found in

The Pittsburg Conference. 177

the eye of the niler. America is the first
country which has no such word as tolerance
in its political dictionary. It is the first country
which has practically severed the connection
between church and state, and which acknow-
ledges no denominational differences before its
laws. The codes of this country ignore every
distinction of race and creed, and thus place
the Israelite upon a level with his fellow-
citizens.

As a plant which has been kept in the dark-
ness of a cellar straightens its stem and spreads
its foliage when transplanted into a sunny gar-
den, thus the Israelite, as soon as the free air
of America fanned his face, and the sunlight of
liberty warmed his stiffened limbs, lifted up his
head, which he had been compelled to bend sub-
missively in Europe. He stretched himself to
the full extent of his growth, and accustomed
himself to his new surroundings. Unhampered
by adverse legislation, he soon succeeded in
establishing for himself and his dear ones a
comfortable home in the land of his adoption ;
and by his honesty, his industry, and his tem-
perate habits, he won in general for himself the
respect of his fellow-citizens.

His spiritual progress, however, his advance-
ment in religion, did not keep pace with his
outward prosperity ; it was perhaps retarded
on account of it. In the old country he had

178 Messianic Expectations.

been compelled by the state or by common
usage to belong to some religious community.
He had become accustomed there to let others
think for him ; and if he had ever dared to
hold a view of his own, he would have been
afraid to express it. Upon American soil all
this was changed. No pressure whatever would
force him to join a religious community. It was
left to his own free will to associate with whom-
ever he pleased. He had, furthermore, the
right, not only to think for himself, but to
speak out his opinion. He learned, to argue a
point, and to submit only to better judgment.
Rationalistic tendencies, which are the inherit-
ance of every Israelite, developed rapidly under
the favorable conditions which were granted to
him upon American soil.

This freedom, as I said, became dangerous to
his religious advancement. Like a schoolboy
in vacation, he did not know what to do with
himself ; there was no authority which he would
or could respect. He did not yet understand
the true mission of congregational life ; he did
not yet see how great a power of morality and
respectability a religious union is. ^ He was not
yet aware that if he desired to rise in the
estimation of his fellow-citizens he must be
represented before them also in his higher aspi-
rations. In the hurly-burly of a busy life he
lost sight of religion, and kept aloof from all

The Pittsburg Conference. 179

religious affairs. And, after all, what had reli-
gion been to him before? Nothing but a bun-
dle of forms, a fardel, which he threw from
his shoulders as soon as the power which com-
pelled him to carry it had lost its grip upon
him.

Some of these forms, however, though bur-
densome, had become dear to him by long cus-
tom ; there were some rites which he considered
necessary to his well-being. He observed the
table laws as well as he could ; he had the
Abrahamitic rite performed on his children
whenever it was possible ; and, no matter how
he had lived, or with whom he had associated
during his lifetime, some superstitious fear made
it desirable for him to be buried amongst his
brethren, in a Jewish burial-ground. It was for
the sake of maintaining a graveyard,- and not
for the sake of moral elevation, that the first
Jewish congregations were formed in America.
Our congregational life, indeed, was bom upon
burial-places ; most of our proud temples have
been erected upon graveyards. No wonder,
therefore, that the stillness of death hovers over
them.

When public worship was added to the in-
ducements which a congregation held out to the
member, the spirit of freedom became a new
obstacle to the development of our religion.
The different elements which had gathered here

i8o Messianic Expectations.

from all parts of the world could not agree with
one another. Every one had brought a certain
usage from home to which he had been accus-
tomed ; and this Minhag, as he called it, he
would never give up. In the old country he
could be compelled to adopt the ritual sanc-
tioned by the state or by rabbinical authority ;
but what in the world could compel him here in
this free country to give up any of his fancies ?
If the congregation would not suit him, he
would simply resign and start a new one which
would be more pliable. It may be ludicrous to
speak of race distinctions in a people which has
preserved the purity of its blood with such great
care as the Jews have ; but, all the same, there
it was. The German, Polish, Dutch, and Eng-
lish Jews could not agree with one another;
they were prejudiced, — I cannot tell by what,
— against one another, and they carried their
distrust even into religion. They split, there-
fore, into numerous small congregations, none
of which was able to support itself decently,
or to show efficient work ; none of which would
give up one iota of its whims and join the next
one in a body.

Now, what did the Jewish clergy do during
all this time .' There was none. In a country
where the President holds office for only four
years, and where the power of high state or
city officials is limited to one year, -the rabbi,

The Pittsburg Conference. l8i

no matter how learned and conscientious, could
win no influence over his people. He was the
paid official, who had to fulfil certain duties de-
fined in a written contract. It was his first
duty to please the secular leaders of the congre-
gation. He had to carry out their wishes ; and
any opposition to them was tantamount to his
dismissal. Fifty years ago there was no Jewish
clergy to speak of in this country. All these
conditions, however, changed. The emigration,
which since the year 1848 has increased with
every year, brought an energetic younger ele-
ment to these shores ; and a new generation
had in the meantime arisen in this country,
which had passed through the amalgamating
process of our public schools ; and these two
elements found allies in each other. American
Judaism began to speak. A Jewish press made
its appearance ; and, though its struggles were
hard, it succeeded in spreading enlightenment
and in removing somewhat the impediment of
race prejudice.

The lack of pressure from without was made
good by the urgent demand from within for
centralization. Orders and societies for all
kinds of purposes sprang up, around which the
straying elements gathered, and by means of
which they became disciplined. The congrega-
tions profited by the general activity ; and the
reform movement imported from Germany now

1 82 Messianic Expectations.

found a warm reception, and exactly the ground
which it needed for its development.

Although the opposition to reform had been
very powerful, and had seemed to be almost
invincible, the liberal movement carried the
day ; and the most orthodox of American con-
gregations seems radically reformed if compared
with similar congregations in Europe. The
clergy which filled the pulpits of the reformed
denomination worked itself step by step into
recognition. Its conscientiousness, its learning,
its earnest will, its ability, made an everlasting
impression upon the laity ; and thus the influ-
ence of the Jewish rabbi upon the formation of
American Judaism was somewhat increased.

However, the whole structure of reform which
had arisen so suddenly under the impulse of the
moment had been built upon sand. It lacked a
foundation ; it lacked principle. Reform had so
far been a compromise between the past and
the present, and had, therefore, given satisfac-
tion to neither party. Reform had so far
changed the outward appearance of our re-
ligion ; it had so far removed nothing but cere-
monies which had outlived their usefulness ;
but it had never touched the root ; it had never
attempted to examine whether or not some of
the underlying principles had become obsolete.

On the one hand, modern researches, modern
science, and modern philosophy, had revolu-

The Pittsburg Conference. 1 83

tionized the world ; they had thrown a search-
ing light upon the history of mankind ; and by
this light a great many errors were discovered
which formerly had been covered by the night
of ignorance. All religious denominations had
been compelled to change their front, and Juda-
ism, rational and flexible as it is, could not re-
main in the rear. On the other hand, customs
and usages which had lived for thousands of
years are not so easily thrown aside ; even if
we become convinced of their uselessness, we
revere them as relics, and dislike to part with
them.

This anomaly soon became evident. Congre-
gational life retrograded on account of it. The
most gorgeous temples, the most artistic music,
and the most elaborate sermons, failed to attract
an audience. There was a discrepancy between
the official sermon of the rabbi and his private
utterances ; there was a discrepancy between
the teachings of the temple and the practices of
the home. This inconsistency created hypoc-
risy, and alienated the most intelligent part of
the Jewish population from religion.

For want of a platform upon which an intelli-
gent man could build ,up his religion, many
turned away from Judaism and joined the ranks
of the atheists. The fervor with which Ameri-
can Jews hailed the establishment of a society
for ethical culture, gaye evidence, on the one

r84 Messianic Expectations.

hand, of a strong and warm religious sentiment ;
on the other, of the dissatisfaction of the think-
ing part of the Jewish population with the
patchwork of reform.

A definition of what modern Judaism is, was
needed. It became evident that we must cut'
loose from the sinking ship, or be drowned
with it.

Impressed with the urgency of the demand
for a new platform, for a definition which
should finally establish a basis for our future
development, the gentlemen who assembled at
Pittsburg rose to the emergency. They spoke
out simultaneously what they had harbored for
years in their hearts, but had not dared to
utter. They defined modern Judaism and
opened the way for its progress. Without
losing the connection with the past, they made
Judaism the religion of the future. Upon the
Pittsburg Platform every intelligent man can
stand without the fear of breaking through it.
It stands elevated above superstition, and will
never be reached by the waves of atheism.

The change which Judaism by necessity had
to undergo upon the new soil has now been ac-
complished. American Judaism has now passed
its first stage ; and the Declaration of Princi-
ples laid down by the conference is the seed
from which a new plant will grow, which,
though differing in structure, foliage, and color,

The Pittsburg Conference. 185

from the European family, will still bear the
marks of the same species.

The Pittsburg Conference was the natural
outcome of years of religious indifference and
stagnation : it was the reconciliation of modern
thought with religious sentiment : it was the
proof of the immortality of Judaism. It was
rather the closing scene of a past period than
the opening scene of a new one.

The bristling caterpillar and the gold-winged
butterfly are one and the same insect, though
they differ widely in their form and mode of liv-
ing. The caterpillar, preparing its own coffin,
transforms itself therein into the new creation.
When its transformation is perfected, the but-
terfly bursts the cocoon and unfolds its wings,
forcing its way into liberty, into the balmy air,
to play with sunshine and flowers.

The Pittsburg Conference marks in like wise
the bursting of the old and outgrown bonds of
Judaism, and the emergence therefrom of its
new and nobler phase.

XII.

THE PITTSBURG CONFERENCE: ITS WORK.

'N my last lecture I discussed the causes
which in my opinion led to the Pittsburg
Rabbinical Conference. Speaking now of
its work, I know of no better introduction
than to give the platform which has been con-
structed by the rabbles who formed that mem-
orable conclave. The following is its full text :

In view of the wide divergence of conflicting
ideas of Judaism to-day, we, as representatives of
Reform Judaism in America, in continuation of the
work begun in Philadelphia in 1869, unite upon the
following principles : —

I. We recognize in every religion an attempt to
grasp the infinite ; and in every mode, source, or
book of revelation held sacred in any religious sys-
tem the consciousness of the indwelling of God in
man. We hold that Judaism presents the highest
conception of the God idea as taught in our Scrip-
tures and developed and spiritualized by the Jewish
teachers in accordance with the moral and philo-
sophical progress of their respective ages. We
maintain that Judaism preserved and' defended,
amid continual struggles and trials, under enforced
isolation, the God idea as the central truth for the
whole human race.

i86

The Pittsburg Conference. 187

II. We recognize in the Bible the record of the
conservation of the Jewish people to its mission as
priest of the one God, and value it as the most potent
instrument of religious and moral instruction. We
hold that the modern discoveries and scientific re-
searches in the domain of nature and history are not
antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism ; the Bible
reflecting the primitive ideas of its own age, and at
tLiies clothing its conceptions of divine providence
and justice dealing with man in miraculous narra-
tives.

III. We recognize in the Mosaic legislation a
system of training the Jewish people for its mission
during its national life in Palestine ; and to-day we
accept as binding only the moral laws, and maintain
only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our
lives, but reject all such as are not adapted to the
views and habits- of modern civilization.

IV. We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbini-
cal laws as regulated diet, priestly purity, and dress,
originated in ages and under the influence of ideas
altogether foreign to our present mental and spiritual
state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a
spirit of priestly holiness ; and their observance in
our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further
modern spiritual elevation.

V. We recognize in the modern era of universal
culture of heart and intellect the approach to the
realization of Israel's great Messianic hope for the
establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice, and
peace, amongst all men. We consider ourselves no
longer a nation, but a religious community; and
therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a
sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the
restoration of the laws concerning the Jewish state.

VI. We recognize in Judaism a progressive reli-
gion, ever striving to be in accord with the postulates
of reason. We are convinced of the utmost necessity
of preserving the historical identity with our great

1 88 Messianic Expectations.

past. Christianity and Islam being daughter religions
of Judaism, we appreciate their providential mission
to and in the spreading of monotheistic and moral
truth. We acknowledge that the spirit of broad hu-
manity of our age is our ally in the fulfilment of our
mission ; and therefore we extend the hand of
fellowship to all who operate with us in the estab-
lishment of the reign of truth and righteousness
among men.

VII. We re-assert the doctrine of Judaism, that
the soul of man is immortal : grounding this belief
on the divine nature of the human spirit, which for-
ever finds bliss in righteousness and misery in wick-
edness. ^We reject, as ideas not rooted in Judaism,
the beliefs both in bodily resurrection and in Gehenna
and Eden (Hell and Paradise) as abodes for ever-
lasting punishment or reward.

VIII. In full accordance with the spirit of Mosaic
legislation, which strives to regulate the relations
between rich and poor, we deem it our duty to par-
ticipate in the great task of modern times : to solve,
on the basis of justice and righteousness, the prob-
lems produced by the contrasts and evils of the
present organization of society.

A French statesman of the last century is
ci-edited with the paradox that the human lan-
guage was invented for the sake of concealing
one's thoughts, and that his remark must have
been founded upon some sharp observation, and
is not altogether absurd, is again substantiated
by the eight paragraphs of the Pittsburg Plat-
form. Indeed, the greater part of their phrase-
ology is merely ornamental ; and if it had
not been for the purpose of concealing some
thoughts, it would have been superfluous. But

The Pittsburg Conference. 189

the task o£ the Convention was a difficult one.
It was to speak the truth before a conamunity
unaccustomed to its sound, and unwilling to
hear it. It became therefore necessary to
sugar-coat the bitter pill which the patient was
to take ; and instead of criticising the verbosity
of the eight paragraphs, let us simply do, what
I suppose the framers wish us to do, remove
the shell and lay bare the kernel.

It was quite natural that the first and most
prominent plank in the platform of a religion
must be a definition of the God idea. Unless a
religion denies the existence of a God, it must
give some approximate description of its con-
ception of the supreme being. However, this
very conditio sine qua non has once before led
to a rupture and break-up of a rabbinical con-
ference. Some of the divines composing it
objected to the theory of a personal God ;
others to that of an impersonal divinity.

Guided by this sad experience, the Pittsburg
Conference, though maintaining that the exis-
tence of a God stands above any doubt, refrained
from defining the indefinable. It maintained,
rightly, that religion is only an attempt to grasp
the infinite ; that all definitions of the supreme
being which have come down to us so far by
means of a so-called sacred literature are sim-
ply the proof of our consciousness pf the in-
dwelling of God in man. It furthermore main-

I go Messianic Expectations.

tained that Judaism has held the highest con-
ception of God at every period of its existence ;
that it has developed and spiritualized it in
accordance with the moral and philosophical
progress of the successive ages.

If this first paragraph is to be translated into
plainer language, it says no more and no less
than that our conception of God has been the
product of numerous evolutions ; that the God
of Moses was evolved from that of Abraham ;
that the God of Isaiah was an improvement over
that of Samuel ; and that consequently our con-
ception of God to-day must be higher, grander*
and purer, than that of past generations, in the
same proportion as humanity has advanced
morally and intellectually and its mental hori-
zon has been extended. The theory of evolu-
tion adapted to the God idea places us far
above our ancestors, and suggests the hope
that future generations will come still nearer
to its true conception. It furthermore grants
to every individual the right of defining God as
he pleases and is able to ; and this is a conces-
sion which has never been made before, but
which is the basis for a universal religion, for
the religion of humanity. Let us understand
this point well.

There are no two persons who hold exactly
the same conception of the divinity. Their
ideas may tally in some points ; but they will dif-

The Pittsburg Conference. 191

fer in others. The greater the difference in their
intellect and their education is, the greater and
the more marked will be the difference between
their Gods. Heretofore every religious system
has had a well-defined God idea, the knowledge
of which it claimed to have obtained by special
revelation ; and therefore it promulgated it as
the only correct one, even at the point of the
sword, and compelled its adherents, and, if pos-
sible, its opponents even, to submit to it and to
acquiesce in it. Human reason, however, re-
volted against such compulsion. The God idea
of Moses towered far above that of his contem-
poraries ; still, he found it impossible to elevate
his people to his ideas, and it took more than
half a millennium before his conception of God
had become popular. Just as impossible would
it have been for the people to drag Moses down
to' their low standpoint.

Place a man of the stamp of an Emerson by
the side of a man who, though he may be the
most honest and conscientious of mortals, has
not received a training in abstract thinking.
Place two such men side by side, and demand of
them to grasp the selfsame God idea. Although
God, the Infinite, is the same being that he has
been and shall ever be, although our conception
of him does not change a particle of his es-
sence, such a demand would be absurd. The
one will follow the vestiges of God through the

1 92 Messianic Expectations.

immensities of the spheres ; he will see his
grandeur in the turbulent waves of the history
of mankind ; he will detect his presence in his
consciousness of self, and philosophically ana-
lyze his essence as it presents itself in the dif-
ferent departments of the human mind. The
other will behold in him merely the giver of his
daily bread and the stern judge: of his actions ;
he will unburden his heart before him in
prayer, and expect of kim, his best and most
powerful friend, that he will intercede in the
trivial affairs of life ; he will live and die in
what he calls the fear of God. What right
would the first one have to force his world-em-
bracing ideas of God upon the second one.'
And by what right could the second one compel
the first one to accept his anthropomorphic
theories ? All religious dissensions which haye
disunited the human brotherhood, all religious
persecutions and wars which have soiled the
record of humanity, had their origin in the belief
that their own God idea alone was the correct
one; that all others, being erroneous, were an
insult to God, which the holders of the true idea
must by right avenge.

But from the time that Lessing wrote his
" Nathan the Wise," and in the fable of the three
rings made him utter the remarkable words,
" The genuine ring has perhaps been lost, and
ye all three are deceived impostors (betrogene

The Pittsburg Conference. 193

Betriiger)," from that time a change of thought
came oyer the world. Intelligent men allowed
to others their own conceptions of God, but de-
manded the same privilege for themselves.
Religious controversies disappeared, or lost
their sting. The God idea of a man was tested
by the way he realized it in his life. If it had
the result of making him an honest man, it was
called genuine, no matter how high or how low
its standard was ; if it contained no such force,
it was rejected as wrong, no matter how scru-
pulously that man performed the ceremonies of
his church, and how hypocritically he proclaimed
his belief in God.

As intelligent men, we can no longer adhere
to the theory that the God ideas of an Abraham,
a Moses, or Isaiah, were the only correct ones ;
that the conception which our ancestors had
of God is exclusively the only true one ;
that, to speak in the words of the fable, we
alone own the genuine ring. Religion is for us,
as the Conference grandly defines it, "an at-
tempt merely to grasp the infinite ; " and with
every step which humanity has advanced, with
every evolution through which the history of
Israel has passed, these attempts have grown
bolder and more successful. Led by the van of
philosophers and thinkers of all nationalities,
the great bulk of humanity has progressed,
though slowly, in its religious views. The

194 Messianic Expectatiofis.

monotheistic God idea has won the victory, and
has replaced polytheism and pantheism. The
average conception of God has become purer
and more sublime than it ever was before ; and
there is no doubt that it will receive its highest
development and its loftiest spiritual ization,
provided full freedom is left to the individual
mind to grasp the infinite to the extent of its
compass. As the first of the Mosaic laws was
a proclamation of freedom, so the first para-
graph of the Pittsburg Convention removes the
shackles of a uniform and unchangeable God
idea, and claims the liberty for every man to
form his own idea concerning the great Ehejeh
asher Ehejeh ; or, in other words, gives him full
liberty in his attempts to grasp the infinite.

Upon this plank the intelligent of all sects
and denominations can unite. It is a plank for
the religion of the future.

The Conference found it necessary to devote
several paragraphs to its definition of the Bible.
The Bible is a book which has been in the pos-
session of our nation for not less than twenty-
three hundred years. Its old age alone makes
it venerable to us ; but it has a value for us
besides its antiquity. It is an inexhaustible
mine of wise and profound thought. Its pages
are full of the noblest sentiment ; its philosophy
is comprehensive, its poetry soul-inspiring, its
ethics both ennobling and practical. As a lit-

The Pittsburg Conference. 195

erary production, the Bible stands unsurpassed.
If we had stopped right here, I believe that
never a word would have been uttered against
the venerable book.^ But we did not stop there.
The Bible, probably on account of its sublimity,
was pronounced to be the direct work of God.
It was stated that God himself wrote, or at
least dictated, every word of it ; that he dis-
tinctly expressed his sovereign will by means of
it ; that, therefore, not one of the laws contained
therein could be abrogated, changed, or abol-
ished ; that we may interpret its wording, but
are not allowed to question one of its statements.
The belief in the divinity of the Bible was made
an article of creed. Down to the end of the
last century, no religious system ever questioned
the principle of revelation by means of a book ;
on the contrary, every religious system thought
it to be a matter of utmost necessity to prove
its genuineness by such a book. Christianity
brought forth the New Testament to match and
offset the old one ; Mohammed produced the
Koran ; and even the present Mormonism at-
tempted to prove its divine mission by docu-
mentary evidence.

The development of science, however, has
undermined in the course of time the belief in
the divinity of the Bible. As a book of human
origin, reflecting the ideas of past generations
and treasuring up the wisdom of humanity in a

196 Messianic Expectations.

condensed form, common sense could revere
the book ; but it revolted against its alleged
divine authorship. Grand as is the Bible when
considered as the product of man, it reflects
little honor upon a divine author. While the
creations of God are all perfect, the Bible is
imperfect. It requires a strong dose of credu-
lity to cover its deficiencies and discrepancies.
Science and modern research became, therefore,
the most implacable enemies of the Bible ; but
not in so far as the Bible itself is concerned ; in
so far only as a divine authorship is claimed for
it, and its errors are presented to us as undenia-
ble truth on the strength of it.

All attempts to reconcile with modern
thought the statements and narratives of the
Bible taken literally have so far failed ; and
while on the one hand we were afraid to haul
down the flag and accept the conditions of
the victor, our daily life brought us on the
other hand in conflict with and in constant di-
vergence from both the historical part of the
Bible and some of its laws. A shameless
hypocrisy, which undermined all religious fer-
vor, was the consequence of it. It became
evident that this unnatural state of affairs
was to be brought to an end unless the best
and sincerest element were to be lost for
religion. There were only two ways before
us, one of which must be chosen : either the

The Pittsburg Conference. 197

Bible was the direct word of God, in which
case every one of its prescriptions must be
fulfilled by us, no matter whether it was appro-
priate or not ; we had no right to change any
of them either by way of interpretation or
interpolation ; if they were the laws of God,
they must stand for all times and all countries.
Or, the Bible was the product of human genius,
in which case we could easily account for its
deficiencies. We could easily comprehend that
the writers, without the remotest idea of de-
ceiving us, had explained things to the best
of their knowledge ; we could subtract poetical
exaggeration and reduce facts to their pos-
sibly true basis ; we could admire the legisla-
tion of the past, and accept of it what was
useful and practicable for us ; we could claim
the right of legislating for ourselves as former
generations did for themselves. Thus all antag-
onism against the Bible would cease at once,
and it would become again the book of the
world.

This bold step has been taken by the Pitts-
burg Conference. The doors have been thrown
open to a normal progress of religion and to the
development of new forms which will corre-
spond better than the former with the demands
of the hour, and will tend to elevate and sanctify
our lives. The prevailing hypocrisy, the child-
ish playing with antiquated forms which had

198 Messianic Expectations.

been substituted for earnest, practical, religious
work, have been done away with ; and the prin-
ciple, once boldly asserted and proclaimed, will
soon give practical results.

It is with you to indorse or reject the defini-
tion of the Bible as given by the Pittsburg Con-
ference. Your acceptance will open a new era
in your religious life ; it will cause you to deter-
mine for yourselves, and to work practically for
religion ; it will elevate you and sanctify your
lives ; it will make you zealous and enthusiastic
in the service of a cause which will indeed be
your cause. Your rejection of it would be tan-
tamount to the former drugging indifference
which has lulled all religion into sleep ; it
would mean empty churches, disorderly Sab-
bath-schools, discord between parents and chil-
dren, moral weakness, and final extinction of
morality.

These two points were the most important
ones which came before the Conference. They
rise above the trivialities of the Sabbath ques-
tion and others of the same character. In fact,
they include them. Freeing you from the
slavery of the past, they give you the power of
legislation, and leave it with you to adjust all
religious forms in accordance with the dictates
of your common sense and your conscience.

The other points are all of minor importance.
These two points once understood, it becomes

The Pittsburg Conference. 199

evident that we form no nationality, but a reli-
gious sect ; that we reject all hopes in the ad-
vent of a personal Messiah ; and, if the word
" Messianic " is needed in the religious vocabu-
lary, we express by it the hope in a time when
all humanity will have reached its highest de-
velopment. In the meantime, and this the
eighth paragraph lays to our heart, we must
not divorce religion from life ; we must partici-
pate as a body in the solution of all the prob-
lems of the day; we must lend a helping hand,
as a body, to the re-organization of society and
to the removal of all the evils which the present
system carries with it. We must participate, as
a body, in the amelioration of the condition of
our less fortunate brethren; and the work of
charity must become one of the noblest branches
of religious activity.

The hope of immortality, too, was inserted as
a plank in the Pittsburg platform. Its existence
was acknowledged; but no definition was at-
tempted in a matter which defies definition.
All those superstitious fancies which have crept
into Judaism, as that of heaven and hell, have
been rejected ; the Conference has dealt with
"one world at a time."

This has been the work of the Conference ;
and every intelligent Israelite can stand upon
its platform, for it is truly Jewish in its spirit.
It acknowledges the one God, the common

200 Messianic Expectations.

Father of mankind ; it acknowledges the great
services which Israel has rendered to humanity,
in spreading the monotheistic idea ; it pro-
claims liberty of thought ; it .appreciates in the
Bible a literary treasure, venerable by its age,
and admirable on account of the inexhaustible
stores of wisdom which it contains ; it makes
us co-workers in the great work of humanity,
and bids us to help build up the grand dome of
human civilization ; it inspires us with the hope
of immortality, without exciting our sensuality
or our fear.

As could not have been expected otherwise,
this work has been furiously attacked. But by
whom .' By all such as could not or would not
think ; by all such as preferred indifference to
active work ; by all such as have been accus-
tomed to look at one side of a question only ;
by all such as would profit by their hypocrisy,
and lose materially if a new avenue were
opened. An army, no matter how large, if re-
cruited of a lazy, timid, and ignorant element,
will be as easily put to flight by a small body of
courageous men, as was the contingent which
Falstaff led into the field.

I could close my discussion of the subject fight
here, were it not that the work of the Confer-
ence has been misrepresented by its foes ; were
it not that, ignoring its true inwardness, they
have picked up two trifling points which had

The Pittsburg Conference. 201

been mentioned informally only at the Confer-
ence in connection with the main principles, and
attempted to scare all true Israelites from it.
These two points are the Sabbath question and
the performance of the Abrahamitic rite. Let
us face these two questions fairly and squarely.
There is a certain timidity observable as soon
as they are touched upon even in private con-
versation ; but if it is true that they are indeed
the main pillars of Judaism, they ought to be
strong enough to bear the light of a fair discus-
sion at least. I fail to see why we should re-
frain from treating these points publicly : as
the modern rabbi is no infallible Pope, and
grants his hearers the privilege of differing
from him.

In regard to the Sabbath, the Conference
could not but acknowledge the historical Sab-
bath — our Sabbath ; — but it warned against
the customary hypocrisy of naming one day of
rest and of keeping another, or none at all.
The main principle of the Sabbath is not that
we visit a temple and listen to a sermon ; it is
our actual abstinence from work. The divine
worship on that day is a secondary considera-
tion. Leaving the power of decision in your
own hands, the Conference merely advised to
adhere to a principle ; that is, to rest from
work, and consistently with it to call that day
your Sabbath on which in reality you abstain

202 Messianic Expectations.

from labor. The Sabbath has been instituted
for the sake of man, not for the sake of God ;
and even if the latter were the case, what pleas-
ure could the supreme being derive from your
theoretical adherence to one day and practical
observance of another or none. It was further-
more maintained that there is no reason why
religious services should not be held on any day
in the week in addition to the Sabbath service,
and that therefore no objection could be raised
if a congregation decide to meet on Sunday too.
The prevailing hypocrisy, which wishes to work
•all seven days of the week, and therefore is
more than pleased with the present shameful
state of affairs, arose against the truthful and
conscientious stand taken by the members of
the conference in an informal debate.

The second point is the Abrahamitic rite ; in
regard to which Dr. Kohler of New York has
alone expressed himself. Let us argue this
point also. The sometimes dangerous opera-
tion can be justified by two reasons only. The
one is that it is believed to be a token of the
covenant made between God and Abraham ;
that it is firmly believed that the supreme
being demanded the surgical and painful opera-
tion of Abraham. That such has indeed been
the case is proven by no other evidence than
the Bible. I have repeated it frequently that it
is in vain to argue with one who wishes to be-

The Pittsburg Conference. 203

lieve. Before belief all arguments become
powerless. The man, therefore, who has this
operation performed on his child, because he
believes firmly that God has made it the signa-
ture to a contract between himself and man —
such a person is perfectly justified in his act
before God and man. I shall always respect
him for it.

But this standpoint has been given up long
since. It appeared too absurd to think of God,
the Infinite, demanding such an operation ; the
religious fort, the only tenable one, was evacu-
ated, and the pious intrenched themselves be-
hind another bulwark. They said it is a san-
itary measure. They quoted medical authorities
in favor of it : they claimed that not only had
this operation been necessary in former ages, in
a warmer climate, but that even to-day it is a
preventive of diseases brought about by im-
morality.

Thus they build their arguments upon the
basis that, as immorality was to be expected,
the well-deserved punishment for it ought to be
frustrated. This is their logic. I shall not speak
now of numerous cases where children have died
on account of the operation : on the contrary, I
shall accept for a moment the standpoint of the
defenders of the ceremony, namely the sanitary
view of it. Vaccination is surely as much a pre-
ventive of a disease as can be claimed for cir-

204 Messianic Expectations.

cumcision. Vaccination prevents an epidemic
which comes over the individual without his
fault, and which in many cases results in death;
while the Abrahamitic rite prevents diseases
caused by immorality, and not easily resulting
in death. But who would dream of making
vaccination a religious rite of high importance ?
Who would claim that a person not vaccinated
could not be admitted into a religious commu-
nity, or that religion is in danger, if vaccination
is neglected ? If circumcision is merely a san-
itary measure, what has it to do with religion ?
We must, then, grant liberty to every parent to
do as he sees fit. If he chooses to have his child
circumcised, why not .? We should hold him re-
sponsible only that the infant be not harmed by
an unskilled practitioner. If the parent should
choose otherwise, why reject him or his children
from religious intercourse with us .■' Either
standpoint is weak. The whole ceremony is
to-day but a matter of custom; and indiffer-
rence or some superstitious fear makes parents
allow it. Such customs die slowly ; and we
have no right to interfere with the conscience
of anybody. Let everybody do as he pleases ;
but it behooves us to speak out the truth and
to say that this usage has nothing to do with
religion. This is much better than to play hide-
and-seek behind intrenchments which have been
demolished by the fire of logic.

The Pittsburg Conference. 205

Liberty is the first principle of Judaism.
Liberty stood godmother at its cradle : liberty
has nursed it, and every postulate of liberty is
therefore Jewish and strictly Jewish. Grant lib-
erty to all also in regard to these two points,
and you need not be afraid of losing the firm
ground of Judaism. I maintain that liberty and
Judaism are identical.

Note. — No sooner had the preceding twelve
lectures been delivered, and abstracts of them
published in the daily papers, than the author
was importuned by numerous letters, pouring
upon him from all parts of the country, to ex-
press himself more fully in regard to his version
of what modern Judaism is, as well as in regard
to some other theological questions which the
writers made free to ask.

At that time, the author found it an abso-
lutely impossible task to answer every one of
these letters ; but, in order to give to his corre-
spondents some satisfaction at least, he has
now added to this book, and for their special
benefit, the following five lectures (previously
delivered by him at different occasions), in which
they will find not only all the information which
they desire, but also the answers to their very
queries.

XIII.

MODERN JUDAISM.

'HE universe is a book of riddles, which
God seems to have presented to human-

^ ity in order to keep it busy, and mankind
indeed has ever busied itself in solving
them one after another. No sooner had it de-
ciphered one of the problems contained therein
than it would joyfully clap its hands in a child-
like manner and look proudly around as if to"
say : Now, am I not a clever fellow ? and with
new energy and without a moment's rest it
would turn to the next enigma.

The more of these riddles will be solved, the
higher will the standard of human civilization
rise, and not until a solution shall have been
found for the last problem : not until the ,last
law of nature shall have been discovered, will
humanity come to rest and to peace with itself.

It is indeed both gratifying and encouraging
to peruse the many pagefuls of riddles which
mankind has deciphered so far ; it is a pleasure
to read all the answers so carefully marked with
indelible ink under every one of these problems,
206

Modem Judaism. 207

which before have puzzled the human mind;
but must we not be astonished the more when
we find that one riddle which occurs in an end-
less variety, on almost every page, has been left
without an answer ? How has this happened ?
How could it have happened ? Has this one
riddle been overlooked, or has it been intention-
ally disregarded ?

For three thousand years a nation has been
living upon earth ; it has lived and prospered in
every zone, it has associated with every nation ;
its life has been open to research, but even
to-day, as three thousand years ago, this nation
has still remained a mystery to the world.
To-day, as three thousand years ago, the Jew is
an unsolved riddle to friend and foe, the mys-
tery of his existence has never been cleared up,
the secret of his endurance has never been di-
vulged, the importance of his mission has never
been understood.

When Abraham, the first of the Hebrews,
appeared in Canaan, he was a riddle to the
people of that country. They transacted busi-
ness with him, they allied themselves to him
in peace and war; but they never understood
him. The ancient Egyptians never understood
the children of Israel, who are said to have
sojourned amongst them for more than three
hundred years. The Jew was a mystery to the
Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans, and he

208 Modern Judaism.,

has remained to be an unsolved riddle even to
all the modern nations to this very day. Our
enlightened contemporaries do not know us ;
they have no measurement for our character ;
they are ignorant of our best qualities ; they do
not know how we live, how we act, how we feel.
They know nothing of our true sentiments, of
our predilections, of our h^pes and aspirations.
They gauge the nation by the individual with
whom chance brings them in contact. When-
ever they find a noble specimen of our race,
they imagine that all the rest is like it : when-
ever their acquaintance is low-bred, they J:hink
that the rest is no better than he. There
stands the Jew, with his grand history, with his
immense literature, still an enigma, an interro-
gation point in human society.

There has never been an author or an actor
who has been able to represent the Jew as he
is. They either lionized and idealized him, or
made a caricature of him. Neither Shake-
speare's Shylock nor Dickens' Fagin is a true
representation of a Jew — nor is Lessing's
Nathan. They all are creations of fancy, to
which never a true prototype was found amongst
our race.

The very same mystery enshrouds our reli-
gion. Judaism, too, is a riddle to the world.
It impressed Malchizedeck with the same -awe
as it did afterwards Darius, Alexander the

Modem Judaism. 209

Great, and the Roman Caesars. It gave birth
to the religions of to-day, to Christianity and to
Islam ; but these children were never able
to comprehend their mother. They gazed at
her with awe, but even at their most advanced
age they failed to understand her stern grand-
eur. There it stands after an existence of
three thousand years, after a continuous strug-
gle of three thousand years, still as youthful
and vigorous as ever, but still the same mystery
to the world as before.

It is not mere phraseology, and by no means
an empty oratorical turn, when I say that Juda-
ism is still to-day an unsolved riddle, that even
in our enlightened age it is as unknown to the
world as it was in the dark ages of antiquity.
- One illustration will prove it.

Our friend, the Rev. Minot J. Savage, a gentle-
man, as you all know, combining profundity of
thought with rare eloquence, who is renowned
both for his deep scholarship and for the liberal-
ity of his views, lately addressed his congregation
on the question, "Which religion is fitted to sur-
vive.''" In a masterly expose he willingly con-
ceded that it is not Christianity which will sur-
vive. " It is not the most beautiful flower," he
said in his introduction, " it is not the most val-
uable grass, it is not that which is of the most
possible service to man, it is not that which is
ideally best from man's, standpoint, which of

2 1 o Modem Judaism.

necessity survives. The fittest here means at
its best that which is best fitted to its condition.
In religion it is that theory which is best adapted
to the advancement of the people that will sur-
vive." Then he maintained that all the different
religions, Christianity included, will evolve and
advance side by side, that they all will cast off
their crude forms, their superstitions, their fal-
lacies, and thus finally blend into that one reli-
gion which will survive as the fittest of all. It
was well said. The same old Jewish doctrine
of the Messianic time, of a time when all nations
will acknowledge and adore the same God, was
brought forth with, full strength though in a
modern garb — but not with a single word did
the orator refer to the one religion which appar-
ently always has been best fitted to its condition ;
not with a single word did he refer to that theory
which has always been best adapted to the ad-
vancement of the people. He had not a single
word for the religion which for three thousand
years has withstood the pressure of time, the
ill-will, yea, the persecution, of all the nations
of the world, and which for three thousand
years has constantly been casting off one crude
form, one superstition, one fallacy, after another,
without changing its principle. He had not a
single word for Judaism. And why not 1 Be-
cause he does not know it, a fact for which we
must not think less of him, nor hold him respon-

Modem Judaism. 2 1 1

sible. Judaism is a mystery, and no one outside
its pale has ever been able to comprehend it.
He shares his lack of knowledge of Judaism
with the rest of mankind.

A still greater mystery surrounds what we
now call "Modern Judaism." It is a term
which defies interpretation. Modern Judaism
is still less known to our Christian friends than
ancient Judaism ; the most liberal, the most ad-
vanced, the most erudite of our contemporaries
do not know what to make of modern Judaism.
One thinks it is an approach to Christianity, an-
other claims that it is the death-rattle of Juda-
ism, and a third that it is a transition to atheism.
And not one of these versions is correct.

Even to our own people modern Judaism is a
term the meaning of which is beclouded. Even
the Jews of to-day do not know what to makfe
of it, and we meet generally with the most
absurd conceptions of it. To many it seems as
if modem Judaism has no essentials, no consis-
tency whatever, and is a trifling and playing
with outward forms merely. They think that
an organ and choir, the uncovered head, the
abolition of the ancient prayer-book, and a Sun-
day-Sabbath are the sole requirements of mod-
ern Judaism ; they feel attracted or repelled by
it in the measure in which their personal incli-
nations favor indifferentism or sensationalism.
But they too are mistaken.

212 Modern Judaism.

I think the mystery begins with the adjective
" modern." We speak of modern improvements,
and mean by them all those contrivances which
have been invented during the' last few years
to save time and labor, to make our surround-
ings more comfortable and pleasant ; we speak
of modern languages, and mean by them all
those languages which at present are spoken by
civilized nations. We speak of modern sciences,
and mean by the term all those branches of
knowledge which lately have risen into promi-
nence. In one word, the term modern implies
something that is new, and is always used in
opposition to the term ancient.

But "modern" does not qualify Judaism in
this sense. Modern Judaism is not a new kind
of Judaism lately invented. Judaism has always
been modern ; Judaism always has been in
advance of its time.

When Abraham entered Canaan and pro-
claimed the El Shaddai, his religion was surely
a modern one. When Moses appeared before -
the people of Israel proclaiming the .great I am,
his religion was modern Judaism. When King
Solomon built and endowed the temple, and
assumed duties which formerly had been the
privilege of the priesthood, his Judaism was
modern Judaism. When the prophets thundered
against the custom of offering sacrifices, their
religion surely was the modern Judaism of their

Modem Judaism. 2 1 3

age ; when Ezra introduced the reading of the
law, and when Rabbi Jochanan ben Saccai,
after the destruction of the temple, substituted
prayers for sacrifices, they were by all means
the advocates of modern Judaism. In fact,
Judaism has changed with every generation,
and consequently has always been, so to say,
modern.

The advocates of free religion claim that all
the religions of the world are honest efforts on
the part of men groping in darkness to find the
secret of this life and the knowledge of all that
pertains to God. But if this be true, we could
as well begin to build a house from the roof
downwards. The knowledge of God and the
disclosure of the secret of life is the beginning
and not the end of religion ; Judaism therefore
begins with the proposition that there is a God
it starts with disclosing the whole secret of exis-
tence, which is to love God above all, and our
neighbor as ourselves, and, while walking in the
pure sunlight of this fact, it dispels, step by
step, degree by degree, the darkness which
overshadows the world. Judaism has there-
fore been the only religion which could cast off
one garment after another, which could adapt
itself to the customs, the usages and opinions
of each century, which could absorb every new
philosophy and accommodate itself to every
new theory without harming or endangering its

214 Modem Judaism:

essentials. All the other religions lost their
identity as soon as they came in contact with a
new truth, and each of their sects was split in
two as soon as a difference of opinion arose
between them. Judaism always remained in-
tact ; in Persia it became Persian, -in Greece
Grecian, in Italy Roman, in Germany German,
in Russia Russian, and here it has become
American, but it remained everywhere strictly
Judaism. Thousands of years ago it absorbed
with the same ease the philosophy of Aristotle
as to-day it absorbs the th«ories of Darwin
and Huxley. It remained always the same
ancient, or, better, the same modern Judaism.

Our modern Judaism is not more or less than
the adaptation of Judaism to the present age,
to the present mode of living, to the present
standard of knowledge. If all our institutions,
our social and political order were to-day in a
settled shape, we should find that modern Juda-
ism too would appear in a more finished condi-
tion, and we should be better enabled to give
a clear conception of it. But the social and
political order of things is at present in a state
of fermentation, the period in which we live is
characterized by its chaotic aspect ; and float-
ing upon such unstable times modern Judaism
sometimes appears to us rather shaky.

The invention and introduction of steam and
electric power has changed not only the former

Modem Judaism. 215

order of things, but also the surface, the ge-
ography, the history, even the philosophy, of
the world, in such a degree that humanity has
not yet been able to keep step with it. A new
order of things is preparing, old landmarks, are
changing, powers small and unnoticed before
are rising into prominence, while others are on
the decline. The struggle between labor and
capital enters every day into new phases, com-
munism and nihilism cannot any longer be talked
out of existence ; in a word, the whole world is
becoming upset and revolutionized. The old
house threatens to fall to pieces, and the new
house is not yet ready. The world seems to be
in labor pains, and still the hour for the birth of
a new order has not yet struck.

How can it be expected that Judaism shall
find its proper form under such circumstances .'
As a magnetic needle is not expected to stand
still during a storm, but gives satisfaction when,
though trembling from right to left, it again
returns for a moment to its true position pointing
northward, thus Judaism, though moving at pres-
ent between extremes, still points out the right
way. When the storm shall have subsided,
when the waves shall have been smoothed down,
Judaism will be found again in its proper place
and in a more settled shape — the only religion
fitted to survive.

Speaking of modern Judaism we must care-

2i6 Modern Judaism.

fully distinguish between those forms which
are the mere garment of religion, and those
which pertain to its body. The soul of religion
is still a creation for itself. Every religion has
a soul, a body, and a v.estment for this body.
Judaism too has such a body, and this body was
never found in want of a garments But in a
religion destined to survive, not only the gar-
ment is cast off from time to time, but the body
itself changes, as the human body does from
year to year. In the measure as the body ex-
pands the garment must be made larger. All
those ceremonies which usually, but wrongly,
are taken for the embodiment of a religion are
its garment only, and adjust themselves from
time to time to the body proper. Of Judaism
both the soul and the body are immortal ; the
soul remains unchangeable, the body assumes
from time to time different forms, the garment
alone is allowed to wear away and to be replaced
by a new one. The whole temple service, with
priests and sacrifices, with breast-plates and
altars, has been a mere cloak to cover the
body of Judaism in its youth.

This body was the anthropology of that
early age. God was represented as the king of
the universe, and although no visible image of
the deity was tolerated, the human mind of
that time was unable to form a higher concep-
tion of the Almighty. With the dawn of a bet-

Modem Judaism. 2 1 7

ter and higher conception the body expanded,
the garment fell away, and the measurement
for a new suit of clothes had to be taken.

The researches of the last century have again
so vastly changed the body of our religion that
a new garment is in demand. This garment
is not yet ready, it is making ; and as soon as
the proportions of the new body shall be un-
derstood, and a correct measure of them shall
have been taken, the new cloak will be finished
at once. The present discord in regard to cere-
monies, the present experimenting with all
kinds of formulas, the feeling of discomfort
which as a consequence pervades at present our
religious life, are caused by the late expansion
of the body of our religion and our desire to
cover the bare places. We may for a time at-
tempt to patch the old garment wherever it
tears, but it is a poor policy, — love's labor lost.
A new one is needed.

As I cannot define what modern Judaism is, I
will at least direct your attention to some great
changes which have expanded the body of Juda-
ism and have therefore caused the demand for
a new garb.

One is the change of opinion in regard to the
origin of the Bible. For centuries the belief
had been current, and seemed to have been
the backbone of our religion, that the Bible was
the direct word of God, that he had dictated

21 8 Modern Judaism.

every word literally to the authors of the differ-
ent books, and that consequently no error or
mistake could have occurred therein. If a pas-
sage would not agree with our common sense,
we would spare no trouble to interpret it so as
to make it fit. If our efforts were unsuccessful,
we would simply bewail human blindness and
our inability to see the true light, but we would
never harbor the least doubt as to the literal
truth of the Bible.

All our ceremonies, therefore, adapted them-
se],ves to this body. The reading and expound-
ing of the law became the centre of the divine
service. The very place in which the scroll of
the law was kept, the very parchment upon
which it was written, were held sacred. When
a fire occurred in a synagogue, people would risk
their lives to save the scrolls ; not because it
was a great expense to them to obtain new
ones, but because they were considered holy.
The preacher would discuss dark passages con-
tained therein, and the text quoted from the
good book was used by him as a foundation for
his arguments. No human power could shake
that evidence, and from it there was no appeal.

This belief has now vanished. The body of
Judaism has assumed an entirely different form.
We believe to-day that, in a certain degree, all
literature is inspired by the divine being. We
know that no author could write a line unless

Modgm Judaism. 219

under divine inspiration. All that we call
invention, discovery, progress, advancement, is
a revelation. The new idea which flashes upon
the mind of a great thinker, of an inventor or
discoverer, the light which he perceives, while
the rest of humanity does not yet see it, is a
revelation of God. God speaks to men to-day
as he has spoken before to them ; he speaks
louder and more distinct to the one than to the
other, but he speaks always in the language of
their time, in order to be understood by them.
The truth of a revelation remains the 'same,
though the wording of it may become erroneous
on account of the medium through which it has
to pass.

Thus the Bible is an inspired book, but not
more inspired than any other. To us, it is, be-
sides, a literary treasure accumulated by our
"nation, showing us how it has been evolved from
its earliest days to the time when the last edi-
tion was revised. It is sacred to us on account
of its antiquity, on account of the grand ideas
expressed therein ; but it has ceased to be in-
fallible. We have ceased to cling to its letter,
though we accept its spirit. All that is true in
it we adopt ; all that is erroneous we discard.
We do not say any longer that a fact is true be-
cause it is recorded in the Bible ; but we claim
that a great many facts have been embodied in
that book because they were thought to be true.

226 Modern Judaism.

We know to-day that the five books of Moses
were written several hundred years after Moses,
not by one but by several authors ; that they
were written in a different order ; that they were
re-edited and revised. Concerning the other
books, we know still less, — even the names of
their authors may be fictitious.

On account of this change in the body of our
religion, our present ceremonial will not fit any
longer. The whole system of our public wor-
ship has ceased to give satisfaction on account
of it. A new garment is making. A hundred
years from now our ceremonies will have been
changed to fit the new condition of things. If
we should live to see that time, we should pos-
sibly feel quite uncomfortable ; we should possi-
bly not call the new creation Judaism ; but
Judaism it will be as long as the soul remains
intact, which is, " Hear, Israel, the Lord thy
God is one God."

Islam could not survive the destruction of
the Koran. Christianity totters to-day on
account of the blows which liberal thinkers
direct against the divinity of the New and Old
Testament, and it will soon fall, as all the liber-
als concede, on account of having no other foun-
dation but the one ; but Judaism will exist for-
ever, even if its Bible shall be placed on the shelf
with other books of the same grandeur or value.
The structure of Judaism does not rest upon

Modem Judaism. 221

the Bible. Judaism existed before a letter of
the Bible was written. Israel's mission is
indeed not written upon combustible parchment
and with a perishable pen ; it is written with
the finger of God, upon the indestructible pages
of human history.

Long before the authority of the Bible had
been shaken, that of the Talmud had vanished
away. The Talmud is a work of great histori-
cal value. With its commentaries it is the pet-
rified life of our nation during more than a
thousand years. It is difficult to give a correct
description of what the Talmud is. I can give
you at present a metaphor only. Take the
leading newspapers of our country, file them
away day by day for a couple of hundred years,
bind them into volumes without reference to
time or place, and then commence to study
from these books the history, laws, and customs
of our country. For a long time the opinions
of the ancient rabbles, as laid down in the Tal-
mud, were considered valid and binding ; our
time, however, claims that we ought to know as
much about the works of our present time as
they knew about theirs, and as we may be in-
competent to-day to legislate for the past and
the remote future, thus have our wise ancestors
been incompetent to provide for us. In a word,
we claim the same right which they claimed at
their time to provide for the present needs.

222 Modem Judaism.

This again materially changes the ceremonial
part of our religion. Another change which of
late has- taken place is, that we have given up
all our claims to political existence. It took a
long time before the land of our forefathers was
forgotten. The persecution under which Israel
suffered for many long centuries, the limited
geographical knowledge which was possessed
by all people, made us sigh and long for a res-
toration of the old country. But this phantom
of political independence has vanished entirely.
Modern Judaism has torn up the old titles which
it held on Palestine. We hold to-day that we
are the true sons of that country in which we
live, and which protects our liberties and our
rights ; and if a few obsolete prayers referring
to the old hope still linger in some old prayer-
books, it is merely on account of conservative
instincts, if not of ignorance of their meaning.
It matters, indeed, little whether the prayers for
the re-establishment of the Jewish nationality
are rehearsed by our orthodox brethren, they
are no longer even a true expression of their
hopes.

Modern Judaism is by no means indifferent-
ism. It means work. It acknowledges the his-
toric mission of Israel to be the banner-bearer
of truth and to proclaim to the world the doc-
trine of one God and one humanity. It claims
that he worships God the Heavenly Father best

Modem Judaism. 223

who bears in his heart the greatest love for His
children, and manifests the same by deeds of
charity. Modern Judaism endeavors to foster in
the hearts of the rising generation the pride of
being Israelites, by removing all such empty
customs, which would lower us in the estimation
of intelligent men, without profiting our reli-
gion. Only he who believes in the immortality
of Judaism, and is proud of being a son of Israel,
can enter with enthusiasm upon the noble work
in store for us.

In a word, all those who love Judaism are
modern Israelites ; all those who join in the
glorious mission of Israel are believers in mod-
ern Judaism.

XIV.

THE SINAITIC REVELATION.

yYTHETHER it i§ on account of the weak-
ijfi ness of the human mind, or on account
of its strength, I cannot tell ; but it is a
fact that our intellect loves to wed events with
places, buildings, and objects of every kind and
description. The latter, insignificant as they
are in themselves, gain by this marriage at once
the respect and the reverence of the world,
which otherwise they would never have been
able to command, and the former receive in
exchange a stronger grip upon the memory of
men than they otherwise would have had force
enough to obtain. Both events and objects are
winners by their union. The old rusty sword,
for which the junk-dealer would have hardly
paid a penny, becomes at once a valuable object,
and is placed on exhibition, because some cele-
brated general brandished it on a certain memo-
rable occasion. The site of the house where
Benjamin Franklin was born, the place where
Warren fell, the tree under which Napoleon
met with Bismarck after the battle of Sedan,

324

The Sinaitic Revelation. 225

the cannon from which the first shot was fired
upon Fort Sumter, — all these places and objects,
as well as a thousand, others, which in them-
selves are of no value whatever, rise at once in
esteem on account of the events connected with
them, while the historical fact receives new
force and is revived with new strength in the
mind of the public at the sight of these relics.
About in the centre of the peninsula which
stretches between the horns of the Red Sea, lies
a wedge of granite rock rising from eight to nine
thousand feet above the level of the sea. Its
scenery is far from being picturesque, its useful-
ness to agriculture amounts to little or nothing ;
not even from a strategical point of view is that,
mountain-ridge remarkable. Its height is far
from awe-inspiring, there is not the least trace
of a volcanic eruption, which at some distant
time might have produced such grand and terri-
fying scenes as Mount Vesuvius does from time
to time ; not even a river of some importance
is born within its domain. This very mountain
wedge, however, has become more renowned
and celebrated than any other mountain in the
world, its name has become more familiar to the
human tongue than that of any other place on
earth, on account of an event which is said to
have taken place about three thousand years
ago on this very spot. Who, in the civilized
world, has never heard of Mount Sinai and of

226 Modem Judaism.

the remarkable event to which its renown is
due ?

When, in the days, of my childhood, I read the
biblical description of the Sinaitic Revelation, I
always imagined Mount Sinai to be a cone rising
up to some height in the midst of the desert,
sloping evenly down on all sides. Around it I
saw the people of Israel pressing toward the
fence which Moses had been commanded to erect
around the base of the mountain, eager to witness
the grand scene which was to occur. I saw Moses
going up and down the mountain, now convers-
ing with God, now with the people ; I beheld
him, the great man, at the summit, enveloped in
dark overhanging clouds, from which lightnings
were bursting forth with unwonted brilliancy;
I heard the peals of the thunder which followed
every flash, and out of the midst of the fire and
from out the noise and turmoil of nature.I heard
the divine voice give forth the Decalogue : " I
am the Lord thy God, who have brought thee
out of the land of Egypt."

How I longed to see that remarkable spot !
I irtiagined that I could find and discern every
feature of the mountain, that I could draw the
very line to which the people had been permitted
to approach ; yea, even that I could trace the
footprints of Moses ascending and descending'
the mountain.

I cannot describe to you, my friends, my dis-

The Sinaitic Revelation. 22^

appointment when for the first time I saw a
true picture of Mount Sinai and read a geo-
graphical description of the place. This moun-
tain range, with a circumference of many, many
miles, with three peaks instead of one, with
roads leading from village to village, with hills
and slopes, with ravines and valleys, this was not
the Mount Sinai which I had imagined. Why,
it must have taken Moses a whole day, if not
longer, to ascend this mountain, and, according
to the Bible, he ascended it twice on the same
day, not speaking of the time his return to the
people must have consumed. And when I fur-
thermore read that amongst men of science it
is still an open question upon which of the three
peaks of Sinai the revelation took place, my
belief in the literal narrative of the Bible suf-
fered a severe shock.

-Not until my experiences had multiplied ; not
until I had found that events wedded to some
places or objects do not stand in any essential
connection with them, and are by no means in-
fluenced and shaped by them ; not until I had
learned the lesson that their union is only ficti-
tious, and is produced by our imagination solely ;
not until I had observed that a sword is a piece
of iron, no matter by whom and on what occa-
sion it was handled ; not until i had lost faith
in all relics, did I recover from that shock, did I
understand that the Decalogue and Mount Sinai

228 Modern Judaism.

were not at all related with one another, that
the one could not lose or. win anything by its
alliance with the other. The Decalogue is the
most divine revelation to the human mindj no
matter whether pronounced upon the summit of
a mountain or in a valley, whether during the
time of a storm or in pleasant weather, whether
it was ratified by a large concourse of people,
or originated in the soul of one man and had
forced its way to general recognition and accep-
tation step by step, degree by degree.

We are assembled here to-night to commem-
orate not so much the time and the place of an
event, but the event itself, which, in general
parlance, is known as the Sinaitic Revelation.
We have set this day apart as a festival of joy,
as a day on which to rejoice that the light of
reason has won a victory over the darkness of
superstition ; that mankind has lifted itself from
the low standard of the brute to the height of
civilized humanity, by acknowledging the prin-
ciple of law and order ; and that the first step
in that direction was taken by our nation. The
Decalogue in its entirety originated with the
Israelites ; or, as we may say in other words, it
has been revealed by God through the people of
Israel.

To understand this in its liberal sense let us
first examine what revelation means. A great
many people have lost their faith in revealed

The Sinaitic Revelation, 229

religion, for no other reason than that they
could not accept the coarse interpretation given
to the word. The terms revelation and dis-
covery are about synonymous ; they cover about
the same ground. Both presuppose an object
which has always been in its place, but which
has not been seen by us ; both presume that at
a certain time a certain hand pushed the curtain
aside which stretched between us and the ob-
ject and barred our way to it. There is only a
slight difference between these two terms.
Speaking of revelation we think that it was the
hand of God which drew the veil aside ; speak-
ing of a discovery, we hold that it was the
human hand which lifted the cover.

The coarse interpretation of revelation is that
God, the invisible, made himself perceptible to
the eye or the ear of some man or woman whom
he selected for that purpose, and that he in-
structed them as to his will and wishes ; that he
pushed aside the veil which prevents man from
seeing a truth, and showed him the path of life
in bright daylight. The Sinaitic revelation,
coarsely interpreted, means that God made his
existence and presence felt in a peculiar way to
the whole people of Israel, and that every Israel-
ite, — man, woman, or child, — though they could
not see any form, heard a divine voice, out of the
midst of a column of fire, distinctly pronouncing
what are known as the Ten Commandments.

230 ' Modern Judaism.

The most refined conception of the word,
however, coincides with that of the other term,
with that of discovery : the divine hand lead-
ing the human hand to lift the curtain which
hides the object for which we are in search.
The distinction between the two terms has
been kept up theoretically only ; practically, we
have arrived at the conclusion that every revela-
tion has been a discovery, and that every dis-
covery is a revelation. The story of the Sinaitic
Revelation is to be taken by us as a poetical
description, both of the grandeur and impor-
tance of the Decalogue, and of the impression
which it made upon humanity ; and, indeed, the
writer remained far behind the actual revolu-
tions and convulsions which these command-
ments have produced. To what does the peal
of thunder, the flash of lightning, or the quak-
ing of the earth, amount in comparison with
the spiritual transformation of the human race,
which began with the discovery of the ten
principles upon which human welfare rests ?
Mankind had felt the existence of each of
them singly long before, by instinct : some of
them were no news to the people. And, in-
deed, they all must have been called into exis-
tence with mankind, as the laws of gravity, of
electricity, and thousands of others, must have
originated with the objects to which they refer ;
but they had not yet been understood: they

The Sinaitic Revelation. 231

had not yet been ga;thered into one common
focus. Degree by degree the human race had
to approach that light ; and finally, a great man,
born in a peculiarly gifted nation, was to tear
away the last wraps which were hanging be-
tween it and mankind. Divine 'inspiration
forced him to collect the scattered rocks and
build of them a huge pedestal upon which the
statue of human happiness could safely rest.

The Ten Commandments were not given to
Israel alone ; they were given through Israel to
the world. The Ten Commandments are non-
sectarian ; they hold good for every race and
denomination, for every century, for the past,
present, and future, for every country, for every
form of government, for every climate and- every
zone ; they are a charter given to humanity at
large.

There can be no doubt that the Ten Com-
mandments are of divine origin ; that they were
enacted by the same supreme being who created
the world and framed all the laws by which
nature is governed. They have received ac-
knowledgment these three thousand years ;
they have been adopted as the groundwork of
all human legislation and religion : they have
been tried at the poles of the earth and at the
equator ; and at no time or place has ever a
change been needed. Not one of them has
ever been abrogated or abolished ; and what is

232 Modem Judaism.

still a greater proof of their divinity, no amend-
ment to them has ever been thought of. We
take some pride to-day in the wisdom of the
framers of .the constitution of this country ;
but barely one century has passed by, when we
find that fifteen amendments have been needed,
and consequently added to it.

If we to-day celebrate the great event of the
Sinaitic Revelation, we do not celebrate it
as Israelites merely, but as members of the
human family ; not for the sake of commemorat-
ing a supernatural, but a decidedly natural
event. This festival is not a mere Jewish
festival ; it is a festival on which the whole
world ought to rejoice, and in the celebration
of which it will ultimately join.

The enemies of Judaism have frequently at-
tempted to rob it of the fruits of its labors ; and
the claim that the Ten Commandments did not
originate with the Israelites, but existed in part
amongst other nations, is not a new one. But
did not the law of gravitation exist long before
Newton found a formula for it.? Did not the
laws which govern the electric current exist
long before Franklin found a definition for
them .' Did not this continent exist before
Columbus discovered' it .'

There is not one commandment of the ten
which by right ought not to have governed the
human race from its very start ; but the grand-

The Sinaitic Revelation. 233

eur of the Decalogue does not consist in the
novelty of its laws, but in the completeness of
their compilation ; and, after all, only a few of
these laws were known amongst the nations of
antiquity. The acknowledgment of one God,
the vanity of imagery, the necessity of one
day's rest out of seven, the command to honor
father and mother, and, above all, the pro-
hibition of envy, the root of all evil, had never
been pronounced before with such distinct-
ness.

To sum it up : the Ten Commandments are
coherent with humanity, they were born on the
same day when the human race sprang into
existence, they are of divine make and bear the
stamp of the divine maker on their face, and we
Israelites have no other claim on them than
that our nation has been the medium through
which the light has been spread over all the
nations of the earth, that the Jews were the
first discoverers and expounders of these re-
markable laws.

But if they are of divine origin, and we, their
discoverers, have been destined to be their
guardians ; if, furthermore, we rejoice to-day in
that glorious mission, and assemble to celebrate
an event of the greatest moment ever recorded
in history, ought it not be our sacred duty at
once to ascertain how near we have come to
the realization of the wishes of God : how near

234 Modem Judaism.

we have come to the goal of human happiness
marked by these very laws ?

While suns and stars, the roaring thunder,
and the destructive lightning, while all the
forces of nature obediently and reverently bow
before their Creator, and submit to the laws
which he has given for their guidance, man
alone keeps on revolting and rebelling against
the divine will. For three thousand years the
Ten Commandments have been the guide of hu-
manity; but three thousand long years have
not yet convinced the feeble being called man
that his happiness and his woe depend on the
obedience or disobedience to these laws. For
three thousand years these beneficial laws have
been known to man, and for three thousand
years they have not been heeded.

Ah ! my friends, we can easily learn these
commandments by heart, we can easily imprint
them upon the memory of our children ; but to
live up to them is quite another thing. What
is the use of celebrating festivals in honor of
these laws, of acknowledging their divinity, if
in our daily life we act contrary to their com-
mands, if we are unmindful of the lesson which
they instil .''

For three thousand years it has been known
to the world that there is but one God ; but
behold how difificult it is for some of our
most enlightened contemporaries to tear them-

The Sinaitic Revelation. 235

selves from a threefold God and for others from
the shallows of atheism ? Three thousand years
ago the law was promulgated, "Thou shalt
have no other gods besides me," and behold
people are still worshipping the vanities of life,
— Gold, Power, Honor, — to the exclusion of the
true God. For three thousand years mankind
has been experimenting with the Sabbath ques-
tion, and the wisest and best men of all reli-
gions have conceded that one day of rest out of
seven, exactly as provided by the fourth com-
mandment, is needed for the welfare of hu-
manity ; and still the Sabbath is ignored. You
work seven full days in seven ; and if it only
were possible, you would work eight. For three
thousand years the commandment, " Honor
thy father and mother" has been taught by
every parent to the rising generation, but alas !
theoretically only, not practically. For if every
man had honored his father and mother, the
sad experience would not press itself daily upon
us that fathers or mothers can raise seven
children, while as many children cannot sup-
port one father or mother in their old age.

The commandment, " Thou shalt not kill," is
three thousand years old, but behold the most
flourishing factories in the world are those
where instruments of war are forged, and the
fat of almost every country is consumed by
large standing armies of trained men-slayers,

236 Modern Judaism.

more courteously called soldiers. " Thou shalt
not steal " is another of the divine laws by
which human society would surely be benefited,
but our prisons are overflowing, not to speak of
those thieves who manage to evade the arm of
human justice.

Nor during these three thousand years has
the slanderous tongue been silenced, or the
envious eye been blinded.

At first sight it seems as if these ten com-
mandments had been a failure, because every
one of them is boldly broken by us; but alas,
what fools these mortals be ! We do not see
that a law stands high as a law, no matter
whether it is obeyed or not ; we do not see
that all human misery, all our anguish and
agonies of life, all our mortifications, are the
consequences of and the punishment for our
disobedience to these very laws.

Divine laws need no police to enforce them ;
their punishment of the disobedient rests with
them. They protect themselves automatically
against infringement.

Let us therefore not allow this remarkable
day to pass by without reflecting earnestly
upon the grand lesson which it instils. Ten
commandments, so simple that every child can
understand them, have been given to humanity.
On our obedience to them depends our happi-
ness and that of our children. They are not

The Sinaitic Revelation. 237

the whims of an irritable God, they are not the
property of one sect or race : they are universal
and endorsed by common sense as well as by
an experience of three thousand years. Let us
not ignore them : let us live up to their full
meaning. Let us show to the world that to
observe these commandments involves no hard-
ship, no self-denial, no abnegation whatever.
Let us prove to the world that the Jew is still
the guardian of these laws and is benefited by
their strict observation. These ten command-
ments are the foundation of Judaism, they will
or can never be changed ; but they are at the
same time the foundation of humanity, and
Judaism therefore will and must exist until all
mankind shall have submitted to these laws.
It is with us to shorten the time which lies
between us and the age when all nations shall
form one la>rge family, and the festival of to-day
calls upon us to fulfil our duty ; namely, to prop-
agate these ten commandments — not as arti-
cles of creed, but as living deeds ; not as theo-
ries, but as practical achievements ; not one
or some as we may select them, but all in their
entirety.

As the summit of this tabernacle is adorned
with the two tablets containing the Ten Com-
mandments, as such two tablets crown the
edifice of this temple without, so must these
ten commandments tower above all our inner-

238. Modem Judaism.

most thoughts and outward actions, and their
strict performance be the ornament and the
most precious crown of our life.

This is the lesson of our festival to-day, this
the result which ought to come from the com-
memoration of the Sinaitic Revelation.

XV.

MOSES.

QN inventive genius is said to have con-
structed a machine which not only had
the appearance of a man, but could walk,
talk, eat, drink, work, and act automatically
like a man. He is said to have finished this
man-machine in the best style, and so similar to
a real man that, after it had been set in motion,
it moved amongst men for years, without ever
being detected as a counterfeit.

After a few weeks of intercourse with real
human beings, the man-machine, however, be-
came dissatisfied with itself : it perceived that
its master had forgotten to supply it with a
soul ; and it wanted a soul. Day after day,
from early dawn to the hours of night, it would
plague him for a soul. The master finally tired
of it, and, wishing to avoid his tormentor, re-
moved to other quarters. But the very next
morning the artificial man would enter his
room, with the words : " Please, sir, give me a

soul."

239

240 Modern Judaism.

It was of no avail that he removed to
another city, that he hid himself in obscure
villages ; the machine would find his hiding-
places, and was sure to approach hfm with the
words : " Please, sir, give me a soul." He re-
solved at length to place several thousand miles
of sea between himself and his creature, and
went to Australia. "I shall now be at rest,"
thought he, when he sat down at the breakfast-
table m his hotel in Sydney. But he had
scarcely touched the meal before him, wheh the
door opened, and his machine, hat in hand, and
humbly bowing, respectfully approached him :
" Good morning, sir ; please give me a soul."

The absurdity of this anecdote lies in the
impossibility of constructing such a machine,
of creating a body which would crave a soul ;
but turn the table, and you will find that al-
most daily in every one of us souls are created
which constantly follow us with the demand :
"Please give us a body." You will find that it
is utterly impossible for you to escape these
tormentors; that they will travel with you,
cross oceans and deserts with you ; and that
there is nothing left for you but to give them
the body which they demand.

There are souls which have no vitality what-
ever, and, therefore, die soon after their birth ;
there are others, however, who enjoy a healthier
constitution, and struggle with one another

Moses. 241

for preference ; and there are still others of
such strength and vigor that the man who is
haunted by one of them is compelled to sacri-
fice all that is near and dear to him — his time,
his personal happiness, his family connections,
his prosperity, his health, yea, often his life, —
in the work of constructing a body for that soul.

To speak more plainly, every idea, every wish,
which, like a spark of fire, flits up in our heart,
is such a soul. They all crave a body — realiza-
tion. Some of our wishes die in the very hour
of their birth ; they are those foolish wishes,
which either are of no momentum, or are easily
realized. If you wish for a new garment, a new
book, a new ornament, or a new toy, and you
have the means of giving a body to such a soul,
you can easily rid yourselves of it ; but there
are wishes which are of momentum, and the
realization of which is not so easy. They will
follow you wherever you go ; they will torment
you constantly; they will enter your dreams,
and disturb your nightly repose. They are
the wishes which refer to the improvement of
our worldly affairs, to the bettering of our
present condition, to the gratification of our
ambition.

Every man wishes to enlarge the circle of
his usefulness, to build up his business, to be-
come famous ; and these are legitimate wishes,
souls of a legitimate birth. They, too, crave

242 Modern Judaism.

realization ; and in your efforts to supply them
with a body, your best years pass by, — yea,
your whole life is spent.

But there are souls of still greater dimen-
sions, before which all the rest must give way ;
they are the great ideas, which are born in the
minds of great men ; ideas which encompass the
welfare of all humanity, arid the realization of
which therefore is so difficult that it seems well
nigh impossible.

Read the biographies of all the great men
who have ever lived on earth, who have spent
their lives in the service of humanity, and you
will find that all have the same features in
common.

A grand idea of universal importance flashes
through their mind ; a great soul is born to
them, and this idea, this soul, haunts them day
and night through all their life. In vain do they
attempt to throw the burden from their shoul-
ders, in vain do they attempt to escape their
persecutors ; the idea, craving realization, fol-
lows them, pitifully begging : " Please, sir, give
me a body," and they must return to their
duty, whether they will or not ; they must plan,
and prepare, and form, and carve a body for that
soul. Suffering from the ingratitude of the
world, despised, ridiculed, persecuted, on ac-
count of their strange work, now rejoicing,
now despairing, now surrounded by flatterers,

Moses. 243

now forsaken by their best friends, they must
toil on. The divine model stands before them ;
and after its pattern they cut, and carve, and
chisel a body so great, so harmonious, so beau-
tiful, that the world, after thousands of genera-
tions, is still bound to admire their skill, to
bend the knee before their great genius, to love
them for all the self-denials and sufferings
which they have undergone so patiently.

Assembling here to-night, celebrating the
Passover Festival, we evidently wish to pay our
tribute of admiration to one of the greatest
benefactors of humanity, to appreciate his ser-
vices, to manifest the love which we bear to him
on account of all his struggles and self-denials.
Although Judaism has never idolized or deified
a man, although it has ever claimed that adora-
tion is due to God alone, we cannot celebrate
this festival without remembering our great
teacher and lawgiver, Moses ; the man who has
not only given birth to one of the grandest
ideas ever produced by a mortal, but who spent
his whole life in framing a body for this soul, a
' body of such greatness that it still towers
above similar structures ; of such strength that
it has outlived similar creations ; of such har-
mony and beauty that other masters have mod-
elled their works after its pattern without ever
reaching the original.

I do not propose to-night to revamp the his-

244 Modern Judaism.

tory of Moses as narrated in the Bible. I hold
that the writers of the Bible, in their simplicity,
have not done him justice enough; they wrote
a history of Moses the prophet, and not of
Moses the man ; they surrounded him with
supernatural miracles and thus robbed him of
the best fruits of his .individual efforts. They
wrote in the light and after the taste of their
time : let us read between the lines, let us allow
our imagination a freer scope, and let us review
the life of this great man in the light and after
the taste of our time. We shall arrive, how-
ever, at the same conclusions, though by a dif-
ferent route, namely, that every great man is the
chosen instrument of God, and that every great
idea which ever flashed upon the mind of such
a man is a revelation of God, a soul, for which
he was compelled to form a body.

At so great a distance of time, and without
the necessary authentic sources to draw from,
it is rather difficult to describe the earlier years
of the life of Moses. The biblical record,
though romantic and pleasing, does not satisfy
us ; modern criticism rebels against any miracu-
lous intervention of God in human affairs. Ro-
mantic and pleasing the story is, indeed, that
Moses was saved from a watery grave by the
love of his mother, and then by the Princess of
Egypt, that he was brought up at the royal
court, and thus initiated in the wisdom of

Moses. 24s

Egypt ; but it lacks probability. The princess
would have shown great humanity, and would
have been deserving of the greatest praise, if
she had simply protected the life of the found-
ling, and had restored him to his family. In a
country in which the spirit of caste prevailed to
such a degree as in Egypt-; in a country where
customs and laws prohibited the entrance of a
member of one caste into another, it must have
been impossible even for a princess to introduce
a member of the lowest, most degraded, and
most despised of all castes into the highest and
most respected, and for no other reason than
that she had found the child years ago in the
river. Granted that the momentary impulse ot
the princess when she found the child had been
that of adopting it, we know only too well that
afterthoughts, and especially a lapse of four or
five years, change such impulses. But suppos-
ing even that he had been admitted into the
royal household, how is it that the princess
could not save her protege when he had slain
the Egyptian .' Could her mighty influence not
have secured the best lawyers for his defence .'
Could he not have been released on the plea of
self-defence ? And why had he to stay away
from home, as the Bible tells, for forty long
years, until all his enemies had died.' Who
were all his enemies }

Let us rather take things as they occur fro-

246 Modem Judaism.

quently and in reality : let us divest the facts of
their romantic garment. In one of -the lowest
Egyptian castes, in a nation held in serfdom by
the Egyptians, a bright boy is born, in humble
surroundings. He grows up, and with him his
inborn talents, his inborn genius. He sees
what others do not see : he observes as others
do not observe. Does he need a schooling ?
No ! the whole universe is the school in which
a genius is trained. The stars in the sky, the
plants on the earth, the animals in the fields,
the murmuring brooks, the surging sea, are his
teachers. Great men seldom had teachers, and
never needed any ; their greatness is within
them, and expands from within, like the bud of
a rose.

Mediocrity needs teachers to evolve and
bring forth the little talent which it contains,
and which is too feeble to break forth of its own
accord. A great man commands respect with-
out being a scholar, and wields influence over
others by his personal magnetism. Young
Moses beheld the misery in which his nation
lived : and the thought flashed upon him, " Free
thy nation, break their fetters of slavery ; for all
men are alike, equal rights are due to all of
them, and the enjoyment of freedom is the first
and foremost of all human rights." The soul
was born, and immediately craved a body.

He went amongst his brethren, preaching the

Moses. 247

gospel of freedom, arousing them to break their
chains, conspiring as revolutionists would do in
our time against the government. The Egyp-
tians soon learned to fear the young partisan,
and persecuted him for high treason. Then
came the critical moment. His own brethren
denounced him. They were not yet ripe for a
general uprising : they would not band together
for the grand purpose. There were too many
party quibbles amongst them ; and when he
undertook the part of a mediator between them
they asked him jealously, "Who has made thee
the judge over us } " They rather sided with
their oppressors against him ; and he was
compelled to depart from his native soil, to
abandon his cherished plans. He met with his
first defeat.

Imagine, my friends, a young man of genius,
full of enthusiasm for a great cause, struggling
for the realization of a grand and glorious idea,
endeavoring to form a body for the soul which
once born in him would not leave him a mo-
ment's rest, but would torment him with the
pitiful cry, " Give me a body." Imagine such a
young man, defeated by his own friends, his well-
laid plans thwarted by the indifference and the
ignorance of those who were to be benefited by
them, his hopes blighted, his works ruined, he
himself outlawed and a fugitive, and you will
understand why he dared not return before

248 Modem Judaism.

many years ; you will understand who his ene-
mies were.

Behold the difference ! Which of the two is
the greater man, Moses the petted favorite of a
princess, sneaking away, a common murderer, or
Moses the genial party-leader, the apostle of
liberty, the political fugitive going into a self-
chosen exile because of ill-success, leaving his
country broken-hearted and in despair ? Which
of the two commands your admiration ?

If you have ever met with a reverse of for-
tune, or with the ingratitude of those whom you
loved best ; if ever your plans miscarried ; if
ever you have stood before the ruins of a work
the construction of which has cost you so much
trouble and labor, you must remember the feel-
ing of apathy which then took hold of you. " I
shall never do it again," you would say ; or,
" This shall be a lesson for me," or whatever
other expression of a similar meaning would
burst from your angry lips. Moses had crossed
the desert, he had found shelter amongst
friends, and he was determined to withdraw
from politics and to retire to private life.
He fled from before the soul, but in vain. In
Jethro's cabin, in the embraces of a loving wife,
amidst the caresses of children born to him, he
heard the cry of that soul, " Give me a body."
With every year the cry grew louder and more
pitiful. In vain did he remonstrate with bis

Moses. 249

tormentor: "Who am I to undertake such
work ? Search for a better man ! Who will
ever believe me again after I have failed once ? "
But the voice kept on crying ; the fire kept on
burning, and the thornbush was never con-
sumed. He struggled against it with all his
might, but in vain. He had to submit ; and he
entered again upon the field of his former activ-
ity, this time to be successful and victorious.

The Bible tells us that he had lived with
Jethro for forty years, but it contradicts itself
on the Spot by the statement that his second
child was still a babe when he returned to
Egypt ; on the other hand, it makes it appear as
if his transactions with Pharao, the ten plagues
included, lasted only a few months.

The Bible, however, grand as it is in general
outlines, is unreliable as to details ; it cares
little for the correctness of numbers or dates.

We may, therefore, accept it as very likely
that Moses had remained with Jethro a few
years only, but that between his return to
Egypt and the liberation of the Israelites a
long period of years must have elapsed.

He returned to Egypt better equipped and
fitted for his mission than he ever had been be-
fore. The idea of freeing his nation had already
assumed a more concrete form: it had grown
larger, broader, deeper. The light had burst
upon him that liberty cannot be cut to pieces

250 Modern Judaism.

and be dealt out in slices, one at a time. He
knew now that he must grant either full liberty or
none, that to be free politically without being
fr;ee morally is an impossibility. He proclaimed,
therefore, now, both liberty of body and of soul,
both political and moral freedom. He was now
ready to break both the fetters of serfdom and
the bonds of superstition. He now stepped
before his nation proclaiming one God and one
common brotherhood.

Misery and exile had not crushed him; on
the contrary, they had " strengthened him ; his
genius had grown and its wings spread all over
the moral horizon, covering arid overshadowing
every branch of legislation.

He began his work anew. Again he at-
tempted to rouse his brethren, again he encoun-
tered their ignorance arid indifference ; but lo
and behold ! he made the king of Egypt listen.

It matters little how he accomplished his
task ; whether by the aid of supernatural mira-
cles, or by political manoeuvring; whether all
the Israelites quitted Egypt in one night, or
whether they left it — as is more probable —
in single swarms and at different times ;
whether they remained for forty years in the
desert, or whether it took forty years, more or
less, before the different swarms of emigrants
were safely settled in one part of Palestine;
whether two and a half millions of Israelites

Moses. 251

departed from Egypt, or a number not so large
as that.

All this matters little ; the fact remains that
the man Moses was the soul of the whole
undertaking, that he organized, civilized, and
colonized a nation of slaves, that he elaborated
a constitution resting upon the principle : One
God and one humanity. One God, the common
father of mankind — all humanity one large
brotherhood, every member entitled to enjoy
equal rights, and an equal share of freedom and
personal happiness.

This was the body which he created for his
great idea, but not so easily was the work
accomplished as described. Revolt after revolt
had to be subdued, many a defeat had to be
encountered, many a reverse of fortune had to
be borne by him, and here behold the greatness
of the man Moses. He has taken the lowest
and most miserable of all Egyptian castes, he
has torn it from the grasp of a mighty empire,
he has colonized it in a country thickly settled
with valiant foes, — he, all alone, without the help
of any human being. But he has done still more ;
he has raised within a few years this degraded
nation to the height of intelligence ; he has
made it the body-guard of the eternal truth
that there is but one God, a God whom no
human eye can see, no human ear can hear, no
human finger can touch, but who nevertheless

252 Modem Judaism.

was, is, and will be, — a God who has created
the world, preserves, and governs it ; he has en-
dowed this nation with laws before which after
three thousand years the whole civilized world
still bows in reverence ; he has proclaimed
through this nation to the whole world that all
men are born free and equal, and that their life,
liberty, and property must be kept sacred for-
ever.

All this may appear trivial to us, who have
been brought up amidst the blessings of his civ-
ilization, who have inherited his doctrines as a
matter of course, who are accustomed to the
liberty proclaimed by him ; but three thousand
years ago, when humanity was still enshrouded
by the night of superstition ; when idolatry of
the coarsest character was still prevalent ;
when the right of the strongest was the only
right maintained at the point of the sword ;
when slavery was sanctioned by law and cus-
tom, — at that time his laws and proclamations
must have astonished the world ; and I do not
wonder at all, that, as it has been claimed,
the mountains trembled and the earth quaked
when he sent forth his message of universal
freedom and equality, his proclamation of one
God and one humanity.

Moses, like all great men, died a poor man.
The services of great men can never be re-
warded; and great men do not ask for com-

Moses. 253

pensation. Great men are, so to say, slaves.
Moses, the proclaimer and champion of liberty,
was a slave -himself. He was the slave of the
grand soul for which he was forming a body.
All worldly considerations vanished before his
grand task ; they were too trivial, too diminu-
tive, by the side of his great work. He had not
time to think of his family.

Neither was Moses ambitious. Not even the
spot is known upon which he closed his eyes
for the last slumber. Great men are not ambi-
tious ; their own self dwindles into nothing by
the side of the work for which they are commis-
sioned. As they are forgetful of their family
affairs so they are forgetful of themselves.

But, though no monument has ever been
erected in his honor, though no festival ever
was instituted to perpetuate his memory, he
has never been forgotten. The names of great
men are written with fiery letters in the book
of life ; and there we find, also, the name of
Moses, with the qualification — the servant of
God, the slave of his divine mission.

Of late a great deal has been spoken and
written about the mistakes of Moses. Now, my
friends, why should he not have made mistakes .'
Why should he have been an exception } Per-
haps he has made more mistakes than you and
I and Ingersoll dream of. Does the painter not
erase many times a line which he has drawn.

254 Modern Judaism.

before he finds the one which suits his purpose ?
Does the sculptor not model and remodel a bust
before he is satisfied with its form ? After all,
the mistakes with which he is burdened are
not at all his mistakes ; they were the mistakes
of his biographers, the mistakes of historians of
a much later period. But, supposing that they
were his, what are they by the side of the great
work which he left behind him ?

Many men have entered upon their public
career amidst the applause and the acclamation
of the people amongst whom they lived. At
an eventful crisis they have made themselves
heard, on the crest of a political wave they
have been lifted into prominence, but soon they
have been carried away by the same wave, and
quickly forgotten. Not so Moses. He has
entered upon his career distrusted by all, un-
known to all, the son of Amram ; but his
genius has cleared the way before him ; he has
compelled his adversaries to acknowledge his
superiority, his talent, his skill, his faithfulness,
and his integrity j and it is not before the end
of his life that we find the nation listening to
every one of his words, and obedient to every
one of his dictates. This fact, if no other,
shows to us that he must have been a great
man indeed.

May the review of the eventful life of Moses,
our great teacher and lawgiver, warm your

Moses. 255

hearts to love and revere not only his memory,
but the work which he has constructed. May
it fill your hearts with pride when you think of
it that you are the guardians of his wonderful
creation, that you are to preserve it, and to de-
fend it against its foes.

Be true to your mission as he has been to
his, and whenever an idea of general usefulness
is born unto you, whenever such a soul asks
you to supply it with a body, listen to it ;
do not shirk your duty ; do not attempt to
flee from before it, but accept gratefully the
divine mandate, and devote yourselves to the
task with all the energy that is within you.
Our great Emerson says : " The one thing of
value in the world is an active soul."

XVI.
PROPAGATION OF RELIGION.

QLTHOUGH the cGnstitution of the
United States of America does not
recognize any distinction of creed what-
soever, and although objections have been fre-
quently raised to the appellation "Christian
country " whenever this term has beefl applied
to the United States, it is an undeniable fact
that after all this country is at present a
"Christian country." Although a large num-
ber of Israelites are sharing with their fellow-
citizens all the rights and privileges which this
country so liberally grants to its inhabitants ;
although a number of Mohammedans, crowds of
BudHhists, thousands of pagans, and even an
uncounted multitude of pantheists and atheists,
do dwell upon this hospitable continent, enjoy-
ing without molestation the rights of life, liberty,
and of the pursuit of happiness, — there is no
gainsaying that their combined number is so
inconsiderably small in comparison with that of
their Christian "neighbors, which is so over-
whelmingly large, that it would be folly to close
256

Propagation of Religion. 257

one's eyes to the fact. Therefore I cannot but
call this country a Christian country, on account
of the vast majority of Christians living therein.

It cannot be denied, furthermore, that to a
great extent our present civilization has evolved
from Christian principles ; we are , surrounded
from all sides by Christian customs and usages ;
our public schools, although they are claimed to
be non-sectarian, are enshrouded by an atmos-
phere of Christian tendencies ; take all in all,
and you must concede that Christianity is a
factor in life which it would be unwise to over-
look in our calculations.

It may have occurred to many of you as an
uncalled-for assumption on my part that I have
touched of late so frequently upon a topic
which so far has always been a noli me tangere
(touch me not) of Jewish pulpit oratory ; namely,
that I have drawn Christianity into my discus-
sions. On account of former persecutions the
Israelites had inherited a certain timidity, and
had become afraid to speak of the domineering
religion, and to acquaint themselves with its
teachings. The name of its founder was rarely,
if ever, pronounced in a Jewish synagogue, and
it appeared not only unnecessary, but even dan-
gerous, to lay open the weak points of Chris-
tianity or to dwell on its strong ones. The
consequence of this timidity was that we have
remained absolutely ignorant in regard to Chris-

258 Modem Judaism.

tian teachings, and that therefore we have be-
come unable to discuss with our neighbors and
friends the differences of our inherited creeds.
Neither were we prepared to defend ourselves,
nor could we lend a helping hand to our more
liberal friends to root up old superstitions..
While on every Sunday thousands of Christian
pulpits have instructed large congregations as
to the tenets of Judaism, with more or less
accuracy; while the Christian clergy have made
all possible efforts to enlighten their parishioners
as to what Jews think and believe, the Jewish
pulpit has remained culpably silent and the Jew-
ish clergy have cowardly shirked their duty. I
am well aware of it that when I first touched
the sore spot many of my friends feared that
lectures on such topics would create an ill-feel-
ing against us in the community ; but they had
forgotten that times have changed. Religions
intolerance is to-day in its last stages of decay,
and, thanks to God, it has entirely disappeared
in this blessed country. The pen has become
mightier than the sword, and the press a more
powerful engine than the cannon. The opinion
of a man is respected provided he enters upon
a research with love for truth, and unbiassed by
prejudice. If we are to stand the pressure of
Christian influence which is surrounding us from
all sides, it would be poor policy on our part to
close our eyes against it : on the contrary, it is

Propagation of Religion. 259

advisable to familiarize ourselves with it, to
examine it with the greatest care, and to show
our friends at the same time what our opinions
are concerning it. If Christianity of to-day is
of a friendly disposition toward us, let us im-
prove such friendship by the better knowledge
of the friend ; if it should be inimical to us,
well, then, how could we better protect ourselves
than by a thorough acquaintance with the forces
which our opponent can lead against us ? Let
us therefore enter courageously upon such re-
searches, but with love, unhampered by preju-
dice, and by all means with the respect and the
courtesy which are due to the feelings of a
neighbor and friend.

In the course of some other lecture I have
asserted that paganism has never cared to
spread its religion ; that, to quote Gibbon here,
all religions appeared to the masses as equally
true, to the philosophers as equally absurd, and
to the government as equally useful. Pagan-
ism, I said, lacked principles, a code of ethics,
and a system, and therefore it has been unfit to
impress the outsider. It could conquer, but not
propagate itself. I have furthermore asserted
that propagation of religion originated with
Judaism, but that it was carried on negatively ;
that Judaism merely taught its lesson by exam-
ple ; and that, though it was always ready to
receive a proselyte, provided he would join the

26o Modem Judaism.

fold thoroughly convinced of the goodness of its
cause, and not for the sake of temporal benefit, it
never invited the stranger, nor did it ever, as a
rule, make converts by force or persuasion. The
belief that God had made a covenant with their
ancestors, to be binding for all future descen-
dants, niade it obligatory for them to teach the
articles and clauses of this covenant to their
children, Judaism was propagated directly only
among the rising generation ; indirectly, how-
ever, it was spread by the stubbornness with
which the Jews refused to acknowledge the
gods of other nations, or to permit any repre-
sentation of the divinity to defile their country.

Christianity was the first religion which prop-
agated itself in a direct manner, which adopted
an aggressive policy in place of the defensive
attitude of Judaism ; and the marvellous success
with which its efforts were crowned are to a
great extent due to this change of tactics.

The success of Christianity is frequently used
as an argument to prove its intrinsic truth.
" Look at the enormous success of Christian-
ity," say its adherents. " Could it have been
achieved if the hand of God had not directly
assisted it ? Look at the success ; could it. have
been achieved if its founder had not been a
divine being .' Look at the success ; could it
have been achieved if its ethics and principles
had not been sound and true, and superior to

Propagation of Religion. 261

those of Judaism ? " Almost nothing is known
authentically of the origin of Christianity ; but
whenever the identity of its founder or the
reliability of its first sources is questioned, we
receive always the same answer, " Look at the
success."

Success, however, proves nothing. Success
is a product of too many factors to prove by it
the existence of a certain special number in its
formation. Thirty-six is as equal to 4X9 as it
is to 3X12, 6y.6, or 3X3X2.X2

Besides to its aggressive policy, the success
of Christianity is due to the democracy of its
principles. No matter how we may differ in
our views in regard to its founder, we must
acknowledge that .Christianity has turned many
Jewish theories into practical shape, that it has
opened the avenues through which Jewish
morals and Jewish ethics could exert their
civilizing influence upon the pagan world.

While Judaism, proudly holding in its hand
the divine truth, said to the nations of old,
"Come to me, if you wish to walk by its light,"
Christianity carried it to them, and by persua-
sion and often by force compelled them to accept
it, even ag;ainst their will. Judaism had pro-
claimed to the world the doctrine that there is
but one God, the common father of all man-
kind ; but Christianity in its youth has practi-
cally stooped down to the ill-treated, despairing

262 Modem Judaism.

slave, and has told him that he was the equal of
his master, and has treated him as such. The
early days of - Christianity, the time before it
had defiled itself with pagan absurdities, will
always command the admiration of all lovers of
humanity. These early days are the period
when it laid the foundation to its future great-
ness, and even to-day it can draw, and does
draw, upon the resources which it had accumu-
lated during the first three centuries of its
existence.

To account for the marvellous growth of
Christianity, we must familiarize ourselves with
the conditions of that peculiar age.

Paganism had outlived its usefulness. - The
belief in many gods had lost its hold upon the
masses, and idol-worship had fallen into disre-
pute. The past, so to say, had disappeared, and
the future was not yet there. The struggles of
the Jews, both with Greeks and Romans, had
directed the attention of the world upon them ;
Jewish ethics had commanded the respect of the
most profound thinkers of antiquity, the Bible
had been translated, and the educated classes
had become familiar with its sublime lessons.
Politically, a large empire had been formed out
of the countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa,
extending from India to Great Britain, and from
the Arabian desert to' the banks of the Danube.
Republican virtue had become extinct, and a

Propagation of Religion. 263

wrangle between despots was now constantly
disturbing the peace of the world. Corruption
was flourishing at the capital and the provincial
centres of the Roman Empire ; extortion and
degradation were its natural consequences. The
social atmosphere was still more unhealthy.
There were no middle classes : the free Roman
citizen on the one hand, the slave on the other.
To every free-born Roman ten slaves could be
counted on an average. The small class of the
freedmen could not adjust the scales. Years of
prosperity had produced an extravagance and a
luxury of which we can hardly form a concep-
tion. We turn with disgust from the descrip-
tion of a Lucullian repast, and our better feeling
revolts against the obscene features of a Roman
banquet. Dissipation on the one hand«>and
misery on the other had made life unbearable ;
and suicides were of daily occurrence. Chris-
tianity found the pagan world rotten to the core,
and thus a field of work as large as it was prom-
ising to yield a rich harvest to the one who
would undertake to cultivate it.

If Christianity had been nothing else but a
creed, a religious sect, which would 'speculate
upon and discuss theological problems and
theories ; if it had established its church for no
other purpose than to pray and sing therein ; if
its preachers had been merely paid officials,
hired to entertain the visitor with flashes of

264 Modem Judaism.

oratory, it would never havse prospered ; the
waves of time would have swept it away with
the rest of philosophical schools wfiich abounded
at that time. But Christianity in its early days
was more than a religious denomination ; it
was a political party, a socialistic organization ;
and its first efforts were flavored even with
nihilism.

The Essenes, from which sect it had sprung,
were pessimists of the first order. They did
not believe in the future progress of humanity,
but rather that, as the conditions of the time
had become apparently unbearable, the whole
world was on the eve of destruction, and that all
would soon perish. Why should they therefore
propagate their race by marriage, or hoard up
capital for future use i The Essenes formed a
socialistic brotherhood ; they shared all property
in common., and did not marry. To swell their
numbers they were compelled to rely upon
proselytes. They would approach a man, con-
vince him of the soundness of their teachings,
and initiate him into their order. The first
Christians were Essenes. They opposed mar-
riage, despised property, and were all in all a
communistic brotherhood. Starting with the
idea that their beloved master would soon re-
turn to hold judgment in a world filled with de-
pravity, the first Christians considered it their
duty to inform the whole world of the threaten-

Propagation of Rdigion. 265

ing catastrophe, in order to save; as many as
possible from the punishment which the justice
of God was* expected to mete out on that awful
day; As they could reach only in; rare cases
the ear of the wealthy, they addressed them-
selves to the poor, to the slaves, to every one
who was dissatisfied with the- present state of
affairs and was a sufferer from oppression. It
was, indeed, good news and glad tidings; to this
class of people when they were told with all
sincerity that the whole social order would be
soon reversed, that the poor should become
rich and the rich poor, that they should soon
enjoy eternal happiness while their proud mas-
ters should suffer the well, deserved, punish-
ment.

For almost; three; hundred years this hope was
held out to the convert ;. for almost three hun-
dred years the return of . the master, the Mes-
siah, the son; of. God,, was daily expected ;: and
all conversions^ were made under the promise
that whosoever would join, the new sect would
not only escape the wiath; of God on the
day of judgment, but. inherit eternal bliss.
Every new convert, became immediately a
missionary ; for he, too, had friends whom he
loved,, whom he could impress with his hopes
and fears, and whom he wished, to be saved on
the day of judgment, and to share with him the
benefactions, which the; new creed, offered.

266 Modem Judaism.

The entrance into the new society was made
as easy as possible ; the instructions were few ;
the ceremonies strange and impressive ; and
the persuasion of the missionaries so powerful,
and so well calculated to appeal to the hopes
and fears of every individual, that the organiza-
tion could not but grow from day to day.

The new sect was at that time as vigor-
ous and outspoken in its detestation of idol-
worship as were the Jews ; but it awakened the
distrust of the government still more by its
attempts to revolutionize the whole social order
of the time. As I have said before, the early
Christians formed small communities, the mem-
bers of which shared all in common. They de-
tested wealth and loved poverty ; they not only
preached abolition of slavery, but practised
it. A convert to Christianity would at once
set his slaves free ; and, whenever a member
had become a slave through the changing for-
tunes of war, his ransom was immediately paid
by the next Christian congregation. Nor did
the early Christians approve of war. Chris-
tianity originally abhorred it ; and not before it
had commenced to degenerate would it allow
its members to carry arms. These communis-
tic tendencies could not escape the eye of the
government. The party in power was rather
inclined to leave well enough alone ; it disliked '
social experiments, and therefore attempted to

Propagation of Religion. 267

A- <

suppress the rising danger by force. A country
in which the majority of inhabitants were slaves,
who were held in submission merely by the
weight of custom, must have been hurt in its
most vulnerable parts by the proclamation of
so dangerous a doctrine as that preached and
practised by the Ghristians.

It has been experienced more than a hundred
times, that ideas cannot be killed by the sword,
that the blood of martyrs is the best fertilizer
for a new idea to grow upon, and that they will
spread the quicker the greater the zeal is to
suppress them. On account of persecution the
early church was compelled to seek secrecy ;
but nothing is more attractive than secrecy.
People do not care for things which every one
can have ; they crave the forbidden fruit. A
sect which is granted the liberty of proclaiming
its tenets by full daylight will never prosper ;
after the novelty of the thing is over, it will
sink back into oblivion. But no sooner is a sect
persecuted than the danger surrounding it
works like a charm and attracts sympathetic
friends ; no sooner is a sect compelled to hide
itself from before the eye of the government,
than it grows in membership. The secrecy
which was forced upon the early church became
the cause of its success. It spread not only in
spite of it, but on account of it. We have no
authentic reports of what was carried on by

268 Modem Judaism.

the early Christians at their secret meetings.
Their opponents and persecutory have charged
them with immoral practices, which the Chris-
tians, however, have promptly denied. I could
never believe in what Lucian tells of them,
though by that time some impure elements
might have already found their way into the
originally pure society. The uniformity of
their secret passwords, symbols, and tokens,
the obedience with which the orders of their
superiors were carried out, had the desirable
effect that in any part of the world a friend and
brother could be found and communicated with
who would do his utmost to help a friend in
distress. This was another and not slight ad-
vantage held out at a time when the highways
were crowded with travellers, and travelling for
pleasure or business had become almost as
common as in our day.

There was, furthermore, a peculiar mixture of
republicanism and despotism in the organization
of the early church which guaranteed its suc-
cess. The members of each congregation were
at liberty to elect their officers, who in their turn
elected a bishop for their diocese. This insured
good officers, men who were worthy of the cour
fidence of their constituency. But the congre-
tion had no power to remove them afterwards
from office, and was bound to abide submissively
by their rulings. The dictatorial power of the

Propagatipn^ of Religion. 269

princes of the church could accomplish more
than otherwise would have been gained by repub-
licanism pure and simple. The officers of the
church did not only administer to the spiritual
welfare of their flock, but for a long time they
were the sole administrators of the common
property. The richer a diocese was, the more
important and influential became the office of a
bishop, and thus these princes of the church
left no stone unturned to enlarge their con-
gregations by an addition of neophytes.

During the first three hundred years the
same hereditary policy was adhered to until
their secret organizations had spread and perme-
ated all classes of society in such a manner that
the Emperor Constantine was finally compelled
to acknowledge them politically. With his
conversion to Christianity we enter upon a
new chapter in its history.

The church nov\r changes its tactics. It feels
strong enough tOvgive weight to its moral per-
suasion by an appeal to physical force. The
hope in the return of the master now disap-
pears; the fqar that the world will come to an
end is now given up as childish ; reward and
punishment are removed into a world to come,
beyond the clouds, beyond the tomb. In place
of these primitive doctrines the firm resolution >
is established that paganism must go : that it is
an act of piety to propagate religion even at the

270 Modern Judaism.

point of the sword. The former philanthropic
and communistic schemes are laid aside as in-
feasible and impracticable ; marriage is made a
sacrament, and the aspirations of the church
run as high as to dream of the establishment 'of
one large empire under the government of a
prince of the church. Open war is now waged
for more than three hundred years against
paganism, and after the turmoil of the great
migration of nations had subsided we find
paganism at the feet of Christianity, its philo-
sophical school closed, its temples either des-
troyed or converted into churches, and the star
of the bishop of Rome in the ascendancy. He
is recognized as the head of Christendom, the
successor of the divine master, the representa-
tive of God upon earth. Kings and emperors
bow submissively before his throne and receive
their crowns from his hands. Christianity is
now -propagated by force of arms and the Chris-
tian priest now follows in the track of the
Christian warrior, or vice versa.

During all this time Christianity had left
Judaism unmolested, for several reasons. It
had separated itself only by degrees from the
maternal stock, and not before it had ascended'
the Roman throne with Constantine had it
become polluted with pagan tendencies. From
that time, however, it cuts loose entirely from
Judaism, and we observe now how one dogma

Propagation of Religion. 271

after the other is formed to suit the time, in
flagrant contradiction to Jewish principles.

Too busy with its work of conquest, Chris-
tianity paid little attention to Judaism, nor did
it fear it. With the exception of some theolog-
ical controversy in regard to the nature of God,
and some occasional legislation in regard to the
celebration of Jewish holy-days, no efforts were
made to convert the Jews by force or persuasion
to Christianity. The Jews in their turn had
become denationalized, and so intimidated by
. their recent misfortunes that they were satisfied
to leave well enough alone ; they carried on
their trade, studied and expounded their law
and propagated their religion, as before, only in
a negative manner.

But when paganism had finally expired and
Christianity had become the mistress of the
world, when its dogmas and ceremonies had
lost their original purity, and had become
tainted with pagan customs and usages, when
it was called upon to measure swords with a
new enemy, Mohammedanism, and to wrestle
with him for the championship of the world, it
turned its eye towards the Jew, and wondered
why it should wage an expensive war against
the infidel Turks as long as in its own midst
there was an element to be converted which so
long had escaped its notice. From the time of
the Crusades the pages of Jewish history show

272^ Modfrft JudimfHi.

the marks- of persecution, which was the out-
come of a misplaced zeal on the part; of Chrisr
tianity to propagate its religion amongst the
Jews.

The motives, for this zeal,, however, had,
changed. There, was no longer- the. desire,
prevalent to save a friend from impending
perdition, nor was th^ afesurdity- of idolatry
to be contested; Political and social regenera?
tion, too, was no longer intended,, and self-
preservation could no longer have been a stim-
ulus for it. All attempts toi convert Jews to
Christianity were caused, partly by.- jealousyj
partly by greed. The Jews claimed tp- be- the
chosen people- of Godj and- to have, preserved,
the God-idea in its purity, and. Christianity-
could, not deny- it; learned Christians knew
rather- too well that the. trinitarian; idea; was no
improvement on^ monotheisro-', Christianity had'
taught the pagan. to abolish hjs idols;, but the:
Jew now pointed with- his. finger- at the images^
with which- it; decorated, its-. churches, and at the
idolatrous reverence which the masses- paid to a
host of saints..

While the meelt Christian; had turned- a
soldier and had won- laurels i on- the, battle-field;
the formerly valiant Jew- had laid', the sword
aside and had turned toi commercial pursuits.
His enterprise and his temperate habits- had
mjuie him rich, while the? warlike knights im^

Propagation of Religion. 273

poverished themselves by their indolence and
extravagance. How could they rob the Jew of
his well-earned property ? They knew too well
that he would rather part.with his money than
accept their semi-pagan religion, and therefore
they threatened him with a forced conversion,
in order to obtain his wealth. If they had
earnestly undertaken the work of forcible con-
version, not one Jew would have survived to
tell the tale.

The modes of propagating Christianity among
the Jews were in all countries about the same.
They were placed under exceptional laws ; they
were compelled to debate with church authori-'
ties on religious topics, ostensibly to find the
truth ; they were prohibited to study their laws ; .
their books were frequently delivered to the
flames ; the most absurd charges were brought
against them, for example, that they would use
human blood on the Passover Festival ; exorbi-
tant taxes were laid upon them ; and occasion-
ally they were expatriated. Spain, which most
successfully propagated the Christian religion
amongst the Jews, is still suffering from the
consequences of her mistaken policy.

It was on account of these persecutions that
the Jews became so disheartened, that they
never thought of propagating their own views
among their neighbors, that they feared every
religious controversy, that they intrenched them-

274 Modern Judaism.

selves behind distinguishing marks of all kinds,
and that they were happy when forgotten by the
outside world.

Time, however, has changed the relations
between the two creeds. Science and a better
knowledge of historical facts have relaxed the
former prejudice, and the higher standard of
morality and the more developed sense of jus-
tice have made such wholesale robbery as was
carried on in former ages well nigh impossible.
With it the zeal to convert the Jew has van-
ished. Our enlightened age has given up the
notion that one religion only can be the right
one, and that all the rest must be culpably
wrong. The belief, too, has been abandoned
that the performance of some ceremony con-
stitutes religion. Beholding in every religion
an attempt merely to grasp the infinite, we do
not object to-day to a diversity of religious
views, and grant to every religious system
the right of propagating itself by lawful
means.

If ever we should assert our right, and at-
tempt to propagate Judaism, it must be with
the full understanding that the forms of religion
are not its spirit ; that religion must be propa-
gated neither by compulsion nor by intrigue, but
by example ; that we must convince, and_ not
persuade ; a conversion must never be made
for the sake of temporal gain, but it must be

Propagation of Religion. 275

the innermost conviction of the proselyte that
our views of life harmonize with his own.

Divest both Christianity and Judaism of their
mythological garments, reduce their history to
facts and not to assertions which must be be-
lieved blindly, and you may rest assured that
our arguments, our ethics and morals, will not
be inferior to those of our neighbors, but must
be the stronger as Christianity itself has been
built upon the understructure of Judaism.

Allow me to close with a quotation from Pro-
fessor Huxley : " What we are usually pleased
to call religion nowadays is, for the most part,
Hellenized Judaism. Not unfrequently the
Hellenic element carries with it a mighty rem-
nant of old-world paganism and a great infusion
of the worst and weakest products of Greek
scientific speculation, while fragments of Per-
sian and Babylonian mythology burden the
Judaic contribution to the common stock."

XVII.

CHURCHES AND THEIR RELATION TO
MORALS.

'O both Jews and Christians, the small
strip of land called Palestine, situated in
Asia Minor, on the shore of the Mediter-
ranean Sea, has. been of more than com-
mon interest for thousands of years. In church
parlance it was called the Holy Land. The
imagination of pious worshippers was heated to
such an extent that in many cases' it became
their most fervent wish to visit this land in
preference to any other, to walk, at least once
in their lives, the ground which their admired
ancestors had trodden ; to see the places upon
which the reported supernatural events had oc-
curred.

They imagined that the whole country was
veiled in a mist of holiness, that the flowers
therein were more fragrant, the water more de-
licious, the air more balmy, the animals more
comely, sun and moon more brilliant than else-
where. From the most ancient time down to
ours, pilgrimages were made to these sacred
276

Churches, their Relation to Morals. 277

spots : there was even a time when all Europe
was infected with that travelling mania. I do
not refer alone to the time of the Crusaders,
when a war was waged for nearly two hundred
years between Europe and Asia for the posses-
sion of these few square miles of land. No, even
later the selfsame delusion prevailed amongst
Jews and Gentiles.

Jehuda Halevi, renowned as one of the great-
est poets of the Spanish period, a man of great
wealth, who had filled the highest offices in the
court of the King of Spain, had no greater
ambition, no higher desire, than to behold with
his own eyes the sacred places in Palestine.
Not before he had reached a good old age was
he able to realize his wish. Finally he laid
down the honors and burdens of his various
offices, settled his household affairs, and em-
barked for the Promised Land. While sitting
upon the ruins of Jerusalem and bewailing the
fate of the city he met with death at the hands
of a common highwayman.

I know not whether these pious pilgrims were
ever rewarded for their troubles by the sights
they saw, but I think it must require a great
deal of superiieated imagination to find Pales-
tine more interesting than any other spot on
the globe. I cannot believe that the country of
Palestine is holier than Massachusetts or any
other. The waters of the Jordan are not differ-

2/8 Modem Judaism.

ent from those of the Charles River, and as
for scenic effects there are thousands of places
in this country and all over the world which
surpass by far the natural beauty of the Holy
Land. Neither do historic associations fill the
scale in favor of Palestine. There is no spot on
the earth where good and bad people have not
lived, where humanity has not suffered and re-
joiced, where stirring events have not happened,
events which helped to civilize and advance
the human race at their timp and in their way,
as did those which are reported to have oc-
curred in Palestine. We meet with delusion and
superstition in geography and history as well
as in any other branch of science.

What Palestine was and is, historically or
geographically, to the deluded pious, such is the
church — or the churches, if you please — to
the superficial observer in regard to morals.

Churches are believed to be the sole producers
of morality; they are, thought to be the only
nurseries of morals ; their representatives —
priests, ministers, clergymen, rabbles, doctors,
or by what other name you may choose to call
them — are believed to hold a patent right on
the manufacture of morals. But as Palestine is
not more or less than any other country in the
world, so does the church not wield greater
power in the realms of morals than any other
human institution, as, for instance, the home,

Churches, their Relation to Morals. 279

the school, society, or the government. The
church is one of the factors which by their mul-
tiplication produce morality, but it is by no
means the root of the product.

Let us look upon a few facts which would
astonish us if. we were not accustomed to them
by their daily occurrence. There is no institu-
tion split in so many factions as is the church ;
and, though all of these factions claim to strive
for the same end, there is no deadlier enmity to
be found in the factions of any other institution
than that which exists between the different
religious denominations. Liberty of conscience,
as granted here and in some other countries, is
only a truce which the contesting parties have
been compelled to accept on account of their
numerical weakness. Let One sect rise into
strength and prominence, and liberty of con-
science will soon become a dead letter.

Since the time that people assembled in pub-
lic worship, or, in other words, since temples or
churches were established, and priests, rabbles,
ministers, or speakers assumed the moral gov-
ernment of the people, what a vast amount of
good advice has been administered by them to
their hearers, but with what effect } Have they
become better on account of the many sermons
addressed to them ? Read the sermons or ora-
tions delivered by the ministers of all denomi-
aations from the time of Isaiah -to the present

28o Modern Judaism.

day ; what do they contain ? What is their
tenor ? As a rule, they begin with praising the
fidelity of bygone generations ; they exalt the
virtue and the moral standard of our ancestors ;
they seek for ideals amongst them alone, and
find an everlasting supply. Then the prophet,
preacher, or speaker will handle his contempora-
ries without gloves. To him, they are the worst
generation that ever disgraced the earth. Reli-
gion with him is always on the decline ; and if
it were not for the hope that future generations
would be better than the present, that our chil-
dren were expected to return to the noble con-
duct of their great-grandparents, the speaker
would despair of humanity, and see the only
remedy of the evil in a second deluge. Return
is the ever-repeated word of the church ; you
never hear the word advance.

This could be understood if the representa-
tives of the church in a given generation had
addressed their age in this manner because of
the exceptional depravity of that generation ;
but what shall we say if there has never been a
deviation from this style of harangue .' Suppos-
ing we should be willing to return, should we
be better off ? Just read some sermons of fifty
years ago. Just read what the church fifty
years ago thought of the contemporary age ; it
was painted by its churchmen as black as ours
is by the preachers of to-day, and so back

Churches, their Relation to Morals. 281

through all the generations who have lived
before us. Indeed, if we could read the ex-
hortations of preachers a thousand of years
hence, it would not be surprising if we should
find exactly the same admonitions and exhorta-
tions, with the slight difference that our age
would then be set up as an ideal, and our
mode of living held out for emulation.

And, after all, who were the great promoters
of humanity and civilization .' Who were the
men that shaped the morals of ages .■• Were
they priests .' Were they the representatives
of the church .' Not at all. Moses, the great
lawgiver of our nation, the builder of the pyra-
mid of morals around which our civilization
solidly clusters, was neither a priest nor an ora-
tor. The founders of Christianity were no
representatives of the established church of
their time. Mohammed, the founder of Islam,
was a business man. If the church is what it
claims to be, the matrix of morals, how is it
that it has never taken the initiative, that it has
never revolutionized the moral world t

Carlyle says, "Man always worships some-
thing; always he sees the infinite shadowed
forth in something finite." But how is it that,
in. spite of this craving for worship, people have
never loved the church ; that through the
whole history of religion we find that people
constantly and persistently act in opposition to

282 Modem Judaism.

the doctrines taught by the church. Scepti-
cism and agnosticism are not children of our
age ; they are as old as the world is, they have
always lived. They have been denounced by
the churches of all ages, by Pagans, Jews, Chris-
tians, and Mohammedans ; but there is no
church which has not become possible on ac-
count of a preceding scepticism and a dissatis-
faction with the previous church.

It is another fact that while the church
never ceased criticising the moral conduct of
the people, the people in retaliation were al-
ways distrustful of the church ; and no sooner
did one of the representatives of the church
compromise the institution by improper con-
duct than a derisive scowl went through the
land, denouncing the culprit and the whole in-
stitution with him. People were and are al-
ways ready for an innovation in church affairs,
and those reformers who attacked the church
of their time most fiercely were listened to
with the greatest delight by the people.

Now, can you imagine that under such cir-
cumstances, laboring under so many disadvan-
tages, the church could ever have monopolized
the manufacture and propagation of morals .'
Could you for a moment imagine that under
such unfavorable circumstances the church
could ever have been in the van of civilization ?
The fact is that the church has not preceded

Churches, their Relation to Morals. 283

but followed the march of civilization, that it
has always accommodated itself to the demands
of the time, that when people demanded reform,
reform preachers arose, that it has not been
the mother but the nurse of morality. ' Let us
understand it well : the church is not the origi-
nator, but the indicator of morality. It shows at
a glance outwardly how high the water of mo-
rality stands inside of the boiler of humanity.
The water in the indicator always seeks the
level of the water in the tank with which it is
connected ; it would therefore be a vain attempt
to raise the water in the tank by a pressure
upon the water in the gauge.

The church would be more efficient in its
work when it should better understand its mis-
sion, which is to be the nurse of morals, and
nothing else. Like a nurse the church must
take the child under her supervision as soon as
it is born, feed it with good and healthy food
and protect it against evil influences, until it
has become strong enough to take care of itself.
She must forever be the faithful servant of its
parent, humanity, and never assume to be its
master. She must endeavor to win its con-
fidence, improve and advance with it, but never
retard its progress. She must ever change
her dress and outward appearance at the com-
mand of her master; she must always look
neat, clean, and tasty, in order to induce the

284 Modern Judaism.

parent to take the child from her lap to kiss
and fondle it.

But let us now leave the metaphor to itself,
let us rather build up an ideal church, such as
should fulfil its mission and should be a centre
of moral development, beloved, revered, and hon-
ored by all. I hope I need not explain that by
the term church I do not understand the mere
building, or a single denomination, but the
whole institution, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics,
Protestants, Mohammedans, Buddhists, flock
and shepherd, pew, pulpit, and all.

Like a church-building the ideal church must
be erected on solid ground. It must stand
upon the rock of faith. Without the belief in
a supreme being, in a God who is the omnipo-
tent creator and preserver of the world, any
church, no matter iiow tastefully decorated,
must fall to ruin. The belief in God is one
of the first and principal essentials of a church.
If a congregation does not assemble for the
sake of worshipping God, for what else does it
congregate.' Ethical instruction and social,
intercourse are worthy objects, but you can
indulge in them outside of the church as well.
You must first of all acknowledge that there is
a God, that your life and " prosperity are in his
hands, and that you are under obligation to
him. You must show your acknowledgment
and gratitude to God by spiritual intercourse

Churches, their Relation to Morals. 285

with him, as manifested by prayers and by such
other demonstrations as in the view of the time
would be pleasing to the father of mankind. A
soul-stirring and soul-satisfying mode of wor-
ship is the first demand which must be sup-
plied by the ideal church. Each form therein
must have a meaning. Forms which have no
longer any meaning, or the meaning of which
is hidden in^the mist of ages, must not be tol-
erated. Every worshipper, learned or not
learned, talented or simple, old or young,
must at once be impressed and enlightened
by the ceremonial part of the service.

The ideal church must not look back too far
into the past ; nor must it look too far into the
future. Its principal care must be for the pres-
ent. We do not find all virtue in the past : nor
will the future be immaculate ; we must take
our ideals from the present age. It is a mistake
to undervalue our own moral standing. With
a little less jealousy, with a little less prejudice,
with a little less selfishness, we should find true
manhood and womanhood in abundance around
us from which to take our ideals. Allow me
one illustration. Why, whenever we speak of
republican virtue, must we always refer to the
Roman general Cincinnatus, who laid down the
highest position in the republic at the command
of the people, and returned to his farm to
raise turnips and carrots 1 Could we not just

286 Modem Judaism.

as well teach it, and even with better effect,
by pointing at the last two presidents of our
republic, — Hayes and Arthur, — who, after
their term of office, returned quietly to their
desks in their law-offices ? ■ It is exactly the
same in any other branch of life. Wie find
Abrahams, Jobs, Davids, and Maccabees, in our
present age as well. They never die out. It
is a suicidal practice to exalt both past and
future at the expense of the present.

Neither is it within the province of the church
to solve geological, zoological, and astronomical
problems. Leave these to the scientist, who
makes a specialty of them. What has the
church to do with the questions how the world
was created, whether it took six days or six mil-
lions of years to form it, whether man was made
of earth, or was the descendant of a lower spe-
cies of animals. What business has the church
to teach whether the sun moves or stands still,
whether supernatural miracles occurred or not,
whether Balaam's ass spoke or brayed .' Sup-
pose he spoke ; what of it .' Can these mira-
cles give additional strength to the belief in
God .' Is not the growth of a blade of grass as
much a miracle, and as unsolved a riddle to us
as the reported passage of the Israelites through
the Red Sea.? Let the dead bury the dead.
The church loses the confidence of its best
adherents by not minding its own business, and

Churches, their Relation to Morals. 287

by dabbling in all kinds of sciences. If a scien-
tist makes a mistake it matters little ; the next
expert who proves the error will take his place
until another proves him to be wrong ; but the
church cannot afford to be corrected : it loses
immediately its hold upon the minds of its adhe-
rents. Our present indifferentism springs from
no other source than the fact that geological and
astronomical statements made and upheld by the
church have been found to be erroneous. The
ideal church must work for the present. Here
we are, no matter how it came that we are here.
Here is the world with its innumerable mira-
cles. Here are our fellow-beings. What are
we to them, and they to us .' How must we act
in order to live happily all together during the
brief period granted to us 1 What are our rela-
tions to the great cause of the creation ? These
are the questions which the ideal church is
called upon to treat ; and I should think that
there is enough in them to reflect upon, to
search for, and to speak about.

Let the future, too, take care of itself. Need
we trouble ourselves as to what mankind will be
or do a thousand years from now .' If we are
to pave the way for its future prosperity, let us
pave our section of the road ; but we cannot be
expected to pave the whole route.

The ideal church, furthermore, must teach,
not criticise ; it must speak the truth, but not

288 Modern Judaism.

insult ; it must demand self-command, but not
abnegation ; it must encourage contentment,
but not asceticism.

Allow me to point out a mistake which the
churches of all denominations have made to the
present day, and which the ideal church must
avoid.

Though they acknowledged correctly the
differences between spirit and flesh, they never
recognized the rights of the flesh. They at-
tempted to make man a spirit even before
death. They never ceased in their vituper-
ation and condemnation of the flesh. They
took a delight in starving the body. Fast-
ing was upheld as a sacred duty; and to
break a fast was stigmatized as an un-
pardonable sin. The ideals, therefore, which
they put up were totally impracticable. If all
men were to live and to act -like the saints of
all churches, human society would soon fall to
pieces ; it could not exist." The churches de-
mand too much from their devotees. A man
cannot think constantly of God and of nothing
else ; nor can he constantly pray ; neither can
he devote all his time to church work. Spirit
and flesh must work in harmony with each
other. God created them both for their special
duties ; they are friends, and not, as the
churches claim, antagonists.

The ideal church must work. It matters

, Churches y thei^ Relation to Morals. 289

little what the fundamental doctrines of any
denomination are, as long as they work with the
right purpose. The members of each denomina-
tion must ally themselves to one another for the
purpose of working together in friendship and
harmony for the preservation and development
of morals. They must work for justice, truth,
love, and charity, and not simply talk about
them.

It is a pity that the Jewish church has been
robbed of its effectiveness, and that its work
has been reduced to almost nothing. Its
founders had given it all the scope it wanted ;
formerly the Jewish church administered the
law, instructed the young, and dispensed all
charities, but later generations have taken away
one province after the other from it.

With the loss of the political existence of our
nation, the administration of the law was taken
from' it. Then the school had to be given up
by necessity. Finally charity has been switched
off from the congregation, and handed over to
the orders and other charitable societies estab-
lished for that special purpose. But it is a
grave mistake. A church which does not work
loses all its dignity and influence.

The ideal church must reconquer the lost
provinces and give out work to every member,
and indeed the field of charity alone is large
enough to supply all. Charity is the principal

290 Modern Judaism.

work of the church, but, understand me rightly,
charity is not the giving of alms, but the distri-
bution of them ; it is not a tax levied upon our
pocketbook but upon our time, our brains, our
intellect, and energy. Charity means to modify
and to alleviate social evils, but not merely to
fill the hands of all who hold them up to us,
without- discrimination. Charity requires work,
earnest work, and. the ideal church must organ-
ize and direct it.

Shall I say a word or two about the leaders
of the ideal church t I believe in its republican
form of government, I believe that it must be
a church of the people, for the people, and by
the people. I believe that its leaders, both
secular and spiritual, should be practical men,
and not merely theorists or linguists. They
ought to understand political economy rather
than the Chaldee language. They ought to be
familiar with the history and the literature of
their own time and country rather than with
that of Hindostan or Persia.

Such a church, if established in every denom-
ination, will soon become universal and unite all
humanity in its fold. It is the church of the
future, the church of the time which we expect
to come and which we call the Messianic time.
Let us pave our section of the road leading
to it.